by Hatchett
13
Day 25 – 12:45
Chippenham
Basir walked back onto the outdoor terrace to find Mamba and Ahmed still drinking beer and having a heated debate. He kept quiet and waited until Mamba spotted him.
“What?” Mamba demanded, turning away from Ahmed to look directly at Basir.
“Boats are ready, Boss,” Basir replied quickly.
“Everythin’ packed?”
“Yeah.” Basir was going to add an ‘of course’ but he didn’t think now was the best time to be clever.
“Let’s go then!” Mamba ordered, standing up and manoeuvring his leg over the bench seat. He walked towards Basir still holding a bottle of beer in his hand. “Lead the way.”
Basir turned and re-entered the pub.
“Mind your step,” he warned as he quickly crossed the room to the exit doors and pushed his way outside.
There were zombies everywhere and it didn’t take Mamba long to understand Basir’s comment about minding his step, seeing the number of dead zombies littered around. It looked like his boys had enjoyed a bit of sport on their way to finding the boats.
The pub’s door slammed, and Mamba instantly turned with a furious look on his face. Ahmed stood there sheepishly, shrugging his shoulders to indicate it was an accident.
The noise had attracted some nearby zombies which immediately edged closer. Mamba gave Ahmed another dirty look and shook his head in disgust before turning and smashing his beer bottle onto the head of an approaching zombie, froth and glass exploding in all directions. Dropping the neck of the broken bottle, Mamba took out his knives and stabbed a couple more zombies as Basir and Ahmed joined the attack.
Once the area was relatively free of the menace and the closest zombies further along the path were milling about uninterestedly, Mamba turned to Ahmed.
“Ya cost me a fuckin’ beer,” he scolded.
“Plenty more ‘bout, man,” Ahmed replied casually, as if telling Mamba to calm down. “Want me ta go get some more?”
“We’ve loaded some on the boats from the supermarket,” Basir said.
“Good man,” Mamba said, wrapping an arm across Basir’s shoulders. “Come on, let’s go.”
Basir led them along the path parallel to the river, black railings on their left preventing anyone accidentally falling in. They skirted a couple of pushbikes which had been unceremoniously dumped in the middle of the path, the remains of a plastic carrier bag containing someone’s shopping threatening to spill from the saddle bags over the back wheels.
They came to the High Street and the main bridge which crossed the river. The High Street was busy with zombies staggering around, and if you didn’t look too closely, it could easily have resembled a normal shopping day with all the people out and about. Basir led them straight across the High Street, swerving in and out of zombies like he was playing a game of Frogger, and onto another riverside pathway on the opposite side.
Within a few metres, Mamba could hear rather than see his men, obscured as they were by the slight bend in the path ahead of them. Several zombies had also picked up on the noise and were heading in the same direction.
“Fuckin’ muppets,” Mamba cursed. “Ain’t they fuckin’ learnt anythin’?”
Mamba quickened his pace, leaving Basir and Ahmed trailing in his wake, barging a few zombies over as they crossed his path. He rounded the bend and found himself staring at four boats tied up against the side of the river and his men pissing about throwing their gear from one to another and onto the boats like a game of pass the parcel.
Dev spotted Mamba and quickly signalled to the others. The noise and antics stopped immediately, and they got on with their jobs as if nothing had happened. Mamba stood there with his eyes boring into them.
Basir and Ahmed caught up.
“I’ve secured the one at the front for you,” he explained. “It’s in a bit better condition than the others.”
Mamba and Ahmed looked to the furthest boat, a sleek white motor launch which looked decent enough. Mamba then glanced at the other three boats to make sure Basir was telling the truth. As he did so, Ahmed spotted Faruk and Ismet already on their designated boat, helping to stow the gear.
“Ah fuck!” Ahmed muttered. “We ain’t gotta travel wiv ‘em fuckers, have we? I’d rather fuckin’ swim.”
“Please yerself,” Mamba replied, and started walking off.
Mamba passed the first three boats until he reached his one, glaring at his men on the way. He jumped aboard and took a long look around, taking in the comfortable looking seats to the rear, weapons dumped in a pile to one side and some boxes of beer piled next to a door leading to the cabin area.
Mamba strolled over to one of the cardboard boxes containing the beer and ripped back a panel to grab a bottle. He then walked to the back of the boat and sat down, ripping the cap off the bottle, and flipping it into the water before taking a long pull. After a sigh of contentment, he smiled and rested the bottle on his thigh, and rummaged around in his pockets for his cigarettes and lighter.
“Get a fuckin’ move on!” he suddenly shouted, and everyone jumped and started working quicker.
Ahmed climbed aboard, giving Faruk and Ismet a dirty look before helping himself a beer and going to sit near Mamba. Basir loped off to the other boats to speed the loading along.
“Gettin’ a bit fuckin’ cold,” Ahmed noted, shivering, and looking skywards with concern as if expecting to see snow any second. “Be worse when we’re movin’. We oughta get inside.”
“And how we gonna hear the fuckin’ ‘copters if we in there?” Mamba asked sarcastically.
“Well, if we’re movin’ up the river, we don’t need ta worry ‘bout any fuckin’ copters,” Ahmed replied.
Mamba just shook his head and took another drink of his beer then a drag on his cigarette, watching as Faruk and Ismet stashed more gear. As usual, they didn’t say a word, but seemed to know what each other was going to do. Not for the first time Mamba wondered if they were telepathic. He knew they both had a screw loose, a fucking big screw if he were honest, but they were useful and better to have on his side. Just their presence scared the shit out of some of the men and kept them well in line.
As Mamba finished his beer and lobbed it into the river, Basir returned to announce that the boats were ready to go.
“We got drivers?” Mamba asked.
“Yeah,” Basir confirmed. “Dev will take the last one…”
“Let’s hope he’s betta at drivin’ a fuckin’ boat than drivin’ a tractor or the poor fuckers wiv him’ll all be fuckin’ drowned,” Mamba interrupted.
“Pilot,” Ahmed said.
“What?”
“You pilot a boat or sail a boat. Ya don’t drive it.”
“Shut up Ahmed! Yer so fuckin’ borin’ sometimes.”
Basir smiled tentatively and continued.
“Walid and Tuncay will pilot the other two boats and Serkan will pilot this one.”
“Funny,” Ahmed said, lighting his own cigarette.
“Have any of ‘em ever driven a fuckin’ boat afore?” Mamba asked suspiciously.
“Dunno. They said they can do it. Like piloting a car, they said.”
Mamba laughed and Ahmed shook his head in disgust.
“Fire ‘em up then,” Mamba ordered, and Basir took out his walkie-talkie and gave the order.
Serkan climbed aboard and headed straight up a set of steps to an upper platform. The other boats suddenly roared into life, clouds of diesel smoke lifting into the air then Serkan started Mamba’s boat. The men on all the boats then heaved in the heavy mooring ropes and they set off.
Mamba smiled as the vibrations coursed through his body, the boats angling slowly towards the centre of the river and watched either side of the boat as it cut through the water.
“Pleasant,” Ahmed remarked.
“Yeah, bro. This is the life but could do wiv some music ‘n bein’ a bit warmer,” Mamba replied.
“Got that right,” Ahmed agreed, and they clinked beer bottles.
14
Day 25 – 13:00
Corsham
Issy watched as the re-fuelled Apache’s took off and sped away in the direction of Chippenham.
She was getting frustrated, knowing that Mamba wasn’t far away, but not knowing exactly where he was or what he was doing.
Irish came up to her as she watched a couple of his men re-cap the barrels of fuel they’d brought along with them on the Chinooks.
“How’s the fuel looking?” Issy asked.
“We’re fine. Got enough for hours of flying time,” Irish confirmed.
“Just make sure we have enough left over to fly home,” Jack cautioned from beside Issy.
In just a few minutes the voice of the pilot flying the first Apache came through Issy’s earpiece.
“Pilot 1 here, Issy. It looks like they drove into the centre of town and dumped the vehicles. All the doors are open and there’s nothing but zombies lingering around. They’ve made a small cordon with the vehicles. And guess what? One of them’s a big tractor.”
“Roger. Must’ve been how they cleared the route. Any idea where they went from there or where they are now?” Issy replied.
“Haven’t seen anything and no idea where they might be. There’s too many hiding places.”
“Sweep the area, especially near all the exits in case they’ve moved on.”
“Roger.”
The earpieces clicked off and Issy turned to Jack, Bear and Irish.
“Thoughts?” Issy asked.
“Depends on what else the heli’s find,” Bear said. “If they can’t give us any leads, we’re a bit stuck.”
“Yeah, I don’t fancy going door to door in the town when we have no idea what might be behind them,” Irish agreed.
“I hate this,” Issy said. “If we had the satellites working, we could look for heat signatures. It’s just so annoying being in the dark.”
“I know,” Jack said, placing his hand on her arm in support, “but we’re not going to be anywhere near having that sort of capability for months, if ever. All we can do is try and track him down the old way, and if we can’t then we can always go home and wait for him to come to us…which he will.”
“Eventually,” Bear agreed, “but I don’t like the waiting part. What’s to stop him using guerrilla tactics, just taking pot shots at us then hiding? He could easily use a sniper rifle to pick off workers and then we’d have no workers.”
“We need to hunt him down and sort him out once and for all,” Issy said, with a look of pure determination on her face. “Maybe the guerrilla tactics can work both ways.”
“What have you got in mind?” Jack asked.
“We place three large teams on the outskirts of the town to cut off any escape. We stay in the open, so they can’t approach without being seen. Then we dispatch small teams to infiltrate the town and flush them out. If they’re holed up, then we call in the Apache’s to finish them off. If they run, the three large teams can pick them off.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Jack agreed, “and we’ve got nothing to lose if we’re careful.”
“Let’s do it,” Issy ordered, not willing to waste a second.
15
Day 25 – 13:30
River Avon
Mamba threw another empty beer bottle over the side of the boat and watched it bob on the swell for a few seconds before filling with water and sinking.
From his seat, he looked over his shoulder and saw the other three boats moving steadily in his wake.
Ten minutes earlier on the outskirts of Chippenham, he’d heard the familiar sound of helicopter rotors thumping above the sound of the boats’ engines. He’d quickly ordered the boats to pull into the banks, under cover of trees where possible, and cut the engines. He’d then watched the sky and listened as the helicopters flew a grid-like pattern over the town and its outskirts, one of the helicopters coming within just a few hundred metres of where they sat, but thankfully the pilot must have been looking inwards towards the town centre. Then the helicopters had disappeared, and they set off again, the boat scraping the bottom of the river in places where it was shallower. Still, they’d made it out without being spotted and they now just had to figure out where the hell they were going without getting stuck.
Mamba looked at the map again and the tributary running off across the map towards a place called Calne. He’d never heard of it, but it looked roughly the same size of Corsham and was sort-of in the right direction on the way back to London.
“Windin’ fucker, this river,” Ahmed remarked as he rose to get another beer from the box. “It’s makin’ me dizzy.”
“It don’t take no river ta make ya dizzy,” Mamba replied. “Jus’ beer.”
“Nothin’ else ta do,” Ahmed countered.
“Yeah, it’s a bit borin’ after a while,” Mamba agreed, accepting the beer offered by Ahmed. “Seems ta be takin’ fuckin’ ages ta get anywhere.”
He looked around and saw nothing but fields.
“Yeah, ‘n some people do this on their fuckin’ holidays,” Ahmed said, laughing.
Mamba frowned. He couldn’t think of anything worse.
“Shoulda brought some birds wiv us, bro. That would have kept us warm ‘n wasted some time.”
“Yeah, but we killed the last ones,” Ahmed pointed out.
“Fuckin’ deserved it! Double-crossin’ bitches. But at least I wasn’t loved up wiv a midget.”
“I wasn’t loved up. ‘N she was a dwarf, not a midget.”
“What’s the difference?”
Ahmed thought about it.
“Coupla inches?”
They both laughed and clinked bottles.
“We shoulda brought Evelyn ‘n fucked her up good ‘n proper afore tearin’ her in half.”
“Nah, man, too old. Old enough ta be yer mum.”
“Older than me mum, bro! More like me granny.”
They laughed again.
“Nah, we shoulda stayed ‘n fought,” Mamba said, with some regret in his voice.
“We dunno how many came, bro, but wiv five fuckin’ ‘copters it woulda bin a lot more’n we got.”
“True. Why’s this takin’ so fuckin’ long?”
“We headin’ upstream, bro. Against the flow.”
“Why didn’t we go the other way then?”
“’Cos it don’t go where we headin’.”
“Not sure this does either.”
“Where are ‘em mad fuckers gone, anyway?” Ahmed asked, referring to Faruk and Ismet.
“Sittin’ at the front keepin’ watch.”
“Hopefully, they’ll fall in ‘n drown.”
“Be nice,” Mamba cautioned.
“Pot. Kettle. Black.”
The boat slowed and Mamba quickly stood up and shouted up to Serkan.
“Wassup?”
Serkan looked behind him then down towards Mamba.
“That tuning you wanted is coming up.”
Serkan steered the boat around the next corner of the river and cut the power, keeping the boat in roughly the same spot. He pointed to the tributary then turned back to look at Mamba with a frown on his face.
“What?” Mamba asked.
“It doesn’t look wide enough for the boats,” Serkan said, “and if we’ve hit the bottom in this bit, we’re gonna get stuck down there.”
Mamba quickly got up and moved across the deck to the stairs and climbed up next to Serkan. Ahmed followed a few seconds later.
“Fuck!” Mamba shouted. “That first bit is OK, but further on…” he let the sentence hang.
They could all see that the tributary was narrow in parts, like a few hundred metres away, so there was no chance they would get these four boats down it.
“Keep goin’ up the main river,” Mamba ordered, climbing back down, and walking back to his seat and picking up the map.
Ahmed joined him as Serkan engaged the throttle a
nd the boat sped up again. Mamba and Ahmed studied the map together, Ahmed tracing the River Avon upstream with his finger. They saw that it wound its way towards and under the M4 then continued North towards a place called Malmesbury. Then it seemed to head East again, the opposite of the direction they wanted to go in.
“Fuckin’ useless,” Mamba opined. “Whose idea was it ta use a boat?”
“Dev.”
“The fucker can’t drive a tractor ‘n now he’s got us on a fuckin’ boat goin’ fuckin’ nowhere. Jus’ as well the fucker’s on the last boat or I’d shoot him right now,” Mamba said, starting to get annoyed.
“It could work in our favour,” Ahmed suggested.
“Oh yeah? Like how?”
“Well, Heathrow’ll be lookin’ at roads ‘n shit ‘n won’t think ‘bout boats. They think we in Chippenham, bro, so if we get off at the M4, we can get some cars ‘n disappear afore they realise we ain’t there.”
“Mebbe,” Mamba allowed, thinking it through. “We betta move fast.”
Mamba hollered to Serkan and indicated that he should speed up. The boat suddenly increased speed, pushing Mamba and Ahmed back into their seats, and it took a few moments for the other boats to realise what was happening and react accordingly.
“Betta hope we don’t hit no sandbank,” Ahmed opined, and they both started laughing again.
16
Day 25 – 14:45
River Avon
Serkan manoeuvred the boat to the side of the river, closely followed by the other three boats, and shut off the engine. A couple of the men jumped off to tie the boat onto anything they could find to hold it in place.
The M4 sat above them, deathly quiet instead of the usual roar of thousands of vehicles passing overhead every few minutes.
A few others jumped off the boats and swayed around groggily for a few seconds before they found their land legs, then they starting taking out the few stray zombies milling about, who had obviously wandered or fallen down the embankment from the road above.
“Get dirty again,” Mamba shouted, aware that their previous coating might have worn off. The men immediately tore open the bodies they had just killed.
