Free Fear the Dead (Book 4) by Jack Lewis Page B

from
across camp as we were about to leave. She took strong strides across the
grass. Her face looked troubled. When she finally stood in front of us,
everyone in the circle looked at her. Lou took a deep breath.
     
    “There’s been another body,” she
said.
     
    The group murmured. Some of them
looked to Darla, others to me. A wave of nausea hit me.
     
    Lou carried on.
     
    “It’s a kid this time.”

Chapter
10
     
    Over the next two days we did what
came natural in the face of a crisis. We turned our heads from it. I kept
myself occupied with the organisation of camp. The morning after the body was
found, I rounded up as many people as I could who weren’t sick and we spent
hours chopping the grass in the fields. I liked the protection that overgrown
grass gave, because it helped shield the camp from passing eyes. The problem
was that strange eyes rarely came near by camp, and even if they did, most Wild
dwellers avoided large crowds. It seemed better all round that we cut the
overgrowth. If stalkers were to blame for the killings, it made little sense to
give them thick patches of grass to sneak through.
     
     In the absence of the necessary
equipment -there weren’t many lawnmowers to be found – we were forced to use
scythes. Reggie, Lou, Mel and I worked our way along the outskirts of camp with
scythes that someone had found in a nearby barn, swinging at the grass as it
bristled in the breeze.
     
    At one point I stopped. I put my hand
to my head, and when I pulled it away my index finger was coated in sweat. I
watched the others wield their scythes under the shadow of the trees and I felt
a cold shiver run through me. In the dim light, under an unfriendly sky, my
friends worked with the tool of the Reaper, and their faces were grim and
heavy.
     
    The camp started to recover from
illness. Tents doors were unzipped and people stepped out and stared into
daylight, sometimes for the first time in days. There was just one death
through sickness, and that had been because he had a heart condition before he
even got ill. It was one death too many, but privately some believed that we
were lucky that the number didn’t grow.
     
    ***
     
     
    “You look like you’re about to drop,”
said Mel.
     
    Later on, we were all sat in my tent.
The door flap was shut but it was still cold inside. Every so often the green
fabric billowed from the force of the wind. Dawn hadn’t long rose over the
third morning after the newest body, and despite the early hour, my tent was
full.
     
    For once each chair was occupied, but
this wasn’t one of our usual meetings. Mel sat across from me. She wore a green
khaki shirt with the German national flag sewn into the right sleeve just below
the arm. Her hair was tied back and her face was clean, but some of her
fingernails hid flecks of dried blood.
     
    Next to her was Lou. Her hair was
greased, and she wore a thick black jumper. The neck of it rose up to her chin,
covering her tattoos and threatening to swallow her face. It was the thickest
piece of clothing I’d ever seen her wear, and I wondered where she had gotten
it. Maybe a fashion boutique had somehow opened up without me realising. I’d
always suspected that capitalism could even withstand the apocalypse.
     
    Charlie and Reggie filled the other
chairs. Reggie had a faraway look in his eyes, though the skin around his left eye
was healing, with the blue tint making way for a rosy pink. Charlie glanced at
the tent door from time to time as if he couldn’t wait to get back to his room
so that he could carry on his work.
     
    The last member of our meeting was
Ben. The boy sat in the corner on my bed playing with his necklace, twisting
the beads back and forth along the string. His shoes were lined up on the floor
below him and his legs were crossed. On his right foot, there was a hole in his
sock and his big toe poked out. His toenail was nearly an inch longer than it
should have been, and I made a mental note to make