“Och, woman, what ye doing in ma kitchen?” Willie growled at her.
Maud looked sharply at him.
“I’m making everyone some food, it’s been a long day and we’re all hungry. And if you think your gruff Scottish ways are going to intimidate me, think again. Look at you, trying to act tough with a baby in your arms, you big soft nincompoop.”
He looked at her and then began laughing, his shoulders shaking so much that Sarah, thinking he was bouncing her up and down again, joined in.
“Ah, you’ll do for me, that’s what I like, a woman with some fire in her belly. Where have you been all ma life?”
With a sad look in her eye, she replied.
“Until two days ago I was married to the most obnoxious, bullying man you could ever meet. Down to his own selfishness, he’s not with us anymore, but I’m not sorry, I don’t miss him, and I never will. Since he died, I’ve made a promise to myself that I will never let what he did to me happen ever again. These people are my family now, and it may seem strange, but the past few days have been amongst the best I can remember having, despite what’s going on around us.
I now have a purpose, and I will look after my new family with everything I have. And if anybody gets in the way or tries to interfere with that, they’ll have to deal with me first.”
Willie had immediately sobered up, listening to her powerful speech. He looked at her with eyes full of admiration and respect.
“Good on you, my dear. I know you meant every word of that. These people are lucky to have you.” Becky went up to Maud and gave her a hug.
“You are in ma house now, and I won’t have you eating that tinned rubbish. I shot me a deer a few days ago. I was going to butcher it and store the meat, but it’s a big’un and there’s plenty of meat on it. Have your wee snacks now, because later we’ll have a feast.”
“I love venison, that’s very kind of you, Willie,” I said.
“How about the rest of us, once we’ve had our cup of tea and rested for a while, sort through and repack all the stuff we collected this morning? The back of my car is stacked with guns and stuff, we don’t really know what we’ve got yet. And my car needs some attention, the front wedge is mangled and just about hanging on to the car after what we did this morning. The ride over the moors didn’t do it any favours.”
“I’ll give you a hand,” said Willie, “I want to have a good look at what you’ve done to those vehicles, it could be useful stuff to learn. You’re welcome to use my workshop and tools if you want. I’ve got a small generator if you need power, and plenty of odds and sods of materials you’re welcome to have. I’m not going to need half of what I’ve got.”
What a true gent, he had opened his house to us and was offering without condition any supplies we wanted. Seeing a few of us were about to thank him again, Simon interrupted.
“Let’s get a move on, folks, the amount of love in this room is making me go all moisty eyed and we can’t be having that. Everyone outside now, before I really start crying.
You big bunch of wussies. Jim, you stay and help Maud. I need all the civvies outside, so Dave and I can start to train those who don’t know how to use the weapons we have.”
A lot of the weapons stacked in my car were still covered in the blood of the original owners. Dave, Simon and Steve gathered us into groups and showed us how to strip and clean them. We were soon doing the basics competently and the stack of cleaned guns was growing.
We had more than enough for everyone to have an assault rifle and pistol each. It was an impressive arsenal.
Once we’d emptied all the magazines we’d collected and counted the full cases, we had quite a few thousand rounds of ammunition for both the rifle and pistols. We didn’t have as many shotgun cartridges, but we still had over five hundred of varying weights and shot sizes.
Shawn was in heaven. He kept repeating that in all the drunken zombie survival conversations he and his mates had had, never had it included starting the zompoc with military grade weapons and thousands of rounds of ammo. It was a prepper’s dream. Simon brought him down to earth.
“This little pile may look impressive, son, but how many millions of zombies are out there? How much ammo do we have? The answer is not even a drop in the ocean enough. We need to conserve what we have for as long as we can, and keep getting more whenever we can. Once we’re down to just having our knives and spears to defend ourselves, we’re going to be in the shit. If we have to get that up-close and personal to kill ’em, we’re going to start losing people. And there ain’t many of us to spare.”
Once the magazines were cleaned, Dave showed everyone, including the children, how to load them.
Shawn, Chet and I were reasonably comfortable in handling the guns, so while Simon and Steve went through firing drills, the rest of us, including Willie, turned our attention to the vehicles.
The tractor and trailer had stood up to the abuse they had received very well. We came up with a few modifications which would strengthen and improve what we had already constructed, but the main issue was my Volvo. It had performed brilliantly all day, but had paid the price. Every metal and timber sheet we had surrounded it with was damaged, and the wedge on the front after using to push the tractor, was crushed and looked about to fall off.
Willie and Shawn went off to scavenge what we needed while we removed what was beyond repair. They came back with his tractor towing a trailer full of timber and metal.
“Let me get dinner started,” Willie said, “and then I’ll be straight back, boys and girls. It’s going to be a long night sorting that mess out, but with what we’ve found, we can make it as solid as a tank by morning.” Within five minutes he was back.
“I’m banned from my own kitchen. Maud has already butchered the deer, picked veg from my garden and got most of it prepped. She told me not to touch anything with my dirty hands and to get out and not come back until she tells me.
If I wasn’t too old, I think I could fall in love with that woman!”
We rotated a guard from a high point nearby that Willie told us about. It gave an excellent all-round observation point, and everyone spent the next few hours until dusk began to fall, either working on the vehicles or training and familiarising themselves with the weapons.
Exhausted and starving, we were glad when Maud called us all in for dinner.
Chapter six
The food prepared by Maud and Jim smelt delicious. A separate table had been set up for the children to eat at, and Sarah was asleep in a log basket lined with towels. The scene could have been taken from a family Christmas where far too many people crammed around tables to celebrate.
It was the first time my children had tasted venison, and I was a little apprehensive about whether they would like it, but I needn’t have worried. They all wolfed it down and held out their plates when asked if they wanted seconds.
Not long after dinner, the children could hardly keep their eyes open. Willie kindly offered us use of the two bedrooms upstairs and the children were all ushered upstairs and forced to clean their teeth before falling fast asleep.
The night was relatively warm, with only a slight chill to remind us that we were high on the moors, so we moved outside to avoid disturbing the children and to have a few drams of whisky that Willie insisted we all share with him.
All the gates to the yard were securely locked and Willie assured us that we would only need to patrol its perimeter. He’d gone to the high ground while we were tidying away the plates, and using low light binoculars, he’d thoroughly checked the surrounding area and announced it completely clear.
It took about ten minutes to walk the perimeter, so it was easily agreed that we should all take a turn. We were all sitting in a circle in his yard, with a single paraffin lamp providing enough light so we could see each other. Once you had walked and checked the perimeter, the person to your right would do the same, and so on.
The whisky was a perfect Isle of Skye single malt and even the
non-whisky lovers amongst the group declared it wonderful, and eagerly accepted the refills that Willie continually offered from the crate of bottles he had set in the middle of the circle.
The conversation ebbed and flowed around various subjects, but always inevitably returned to the story of the moment. The zombie apocalypse we were in and how to survive it.
Willie declared our intent to head to Warwick Castle a sound plan, but refused our offer to join us, stating that he had lived up there alone for over twenty years, and he was so far off the beaten track that even walkers found it hard to find him, let alone the walking dead. He had enough supplies to last a long time and enough weapons and ammunition to keep himself safe. We tried to persuade him, but we eventually gave up when he said he would keep searching out survivors who had fled to the moors, and offer them a place to recover, and would tell them to head to Warwick to join us.
He told us about what he had learned from other ham radio users he was in touch with around the world. Most had reported the spread of the outbreak and he’d had to listen to many desperate calls for help from households about to be overrun. In the United States, many Prepping communities had activated their well worked out and practised emergency plans and had headed to what they had considered to be their pre-planned safe areas.
Most reported very few of their members making it, and were preparing to do the best they could to survive. Very few reported that they were safe and secure in their compounds. We had seen the TV shows about these groups that people call extremists, who the media tried to portray as a danger to national security.
They had secure walled compounds and vast supplies of both food and arms. They trained as virtual paramilitary organisations, and had drills and pre-planned procedures to follow, so everyone worked as a team. They reported, as far as they could tell, the complete collapse of the command and control of the nation’s armed forces. The virus had spread too far and too quickly, decimating most of the available manpower as they themselves became infected and turned.
Shawn, as a Prepper himself, had a greater understanding of what these groups had and were capable of, and regaled us with a few stories of the amassed resources these groups probably had available. Unlike the military, these guys prepared for the end of the world and knew what to do, and they didn’t have to wait for orders to act which would come too late, but acted immediately at the first sign of any of their pre-prepared scenarios happening.
Simon and Dave explained that a problem we were having was the ammunition the armed forces used. As did all others around the world, the bullets were full metal jacket or ball ammunition. This enabled good penetration, but the bullet was not designed to expand and so cause massive damage to whatever it hit. It just went straight through unless it hit anything solid, such as bone. That was fine on the battlefield, because if you were shot, you were down and out of the fight, but a lot of bullet wounds were survivable with quick medical treatment.
Expanding rounds used for hunting, which were banned for battlefield use under The Hague Convention that dated to the late 1800s, would expand on impact and cause maximum internal damage, and so most likely kill what it hit quickly and therefore humanely.
The zombies could feel no pain, so unless somewhere vital was hit such as the brain or the heart, they just carried on coming, regardless of what damage the bullet had caused.
“Ya need to get yerself to a gun shop, ma boys,” said Willie, “The .223 round used in a lot of hunting rifles is the same at the .556 bullets those SA80s use. They’ll have a lot of stopping power and give you a better chance of putting them down. There’s one not far from here in Newton Abbot. If someone hasn’t beaten ya to it, I’d plan to head there as soon as possible. They won’t keep thousands of rounds, but whatever they have will be better than what ya currently have. But they’ll keep thousands and thousands of shotgun cartridges which I’m sure you’ll find useful.”
Dave offered Willie any of the guns we had for him to keep for himself as small recompense for what he’d given to us. He said he had a fair amount of stuff he had gathered over the years and forgotten to tell the authorities about, but he wouldn’t mind having one of the SA80s, as it would be a nice addition to his collection. He refused any ammunition, saying he loaded his own and had plenty of components to make a lot of .223 bullets for them.
It was getting late and even though I felt that most of us would prefer to take the illogical but completely understandable option of getting completely pissed on Willie’s fine whisky, we needed to plan for tomorrow.
Spreading the map on the ground, we turned the lantern up to illuminate it better. It looked easy on the map. Head to Newton Abbot to raid the gun shop, then get on the A38, which turns into the M5 motorway. It was then a straight run to Bristol to begin the rescue of our friends and family en route to Warwick castle.
Using a city map of Bristol that Willie found, Shawn showed us where he and his mates shared a house. It wasn’t far off the M4 motorway and seemed quite straightforward to reach, as long as the roads were not blocked or full of zombies, that was.
“Do you think they’ll be there, Shawn? We’ve seen no survivors, apart from us lot sitting here.” I looked at everyone around the circle. “I know we’ve promised to try and reach all of your family and friends that we can, and we will do that. But to be brutally honest, I’m really sorry to say that with the way we know things are, it’s going to be a miracle if we find anyone alive. I hope to God they are, but I don’t think you should get your hopes up too much.”
Shawn leant forward in his seat.
“I know, Tom, and my hopes are not high, but for our own sanity I think we should try. At least we’ll know one way or the other. Imagine not trying and therefore not knowing. It would mess with your head too much and probably send you insane. If they are dead, we can grieve and get over it and keep trying to survive. We just need to know, that’s all.” Everyone nodded, quietly lost in their thoughts about their friends and family. Becky turned to Shawn.
“Tell us about your friends, I think we need some cheering up now.”
He laughed, “Where do I start? We’ve lived together for years and have known each other since school. We’ve all tried either being married or living with girlfriends, but none of it ever worked out. About five years ago we decided that it would be cheaper if we all rented a large house and lived together.
It saved us all a lot of money and saved us from the loneliness of living alone. All our other friends joke we’re the oldest students in the world. It works really well, though. We all have our own space, so if any of us has a girlfriend over, we can get some privacy, but there’s always someone about to spent time with. We have rules to keep the place as tidy as we can, and we pay for a cleaner to come in twice a week to do all the stuff us boys miss.”
I laughed and said out loud, “Wow it sounds great…”
I immediately realised what I’d said and tried to save the situation, much to everyone’s amusement, by explaining to Becky that I thought it clearly was not a good thing and people needed to settle down, and provide a stable home to raise their family. She eventually slightly forgave me and told Shawn to continue.
“We got into prepping after many pub ‘what if’ conversations, and decided that improving our survival skills worked well with our other shared passion. Medieval reenactments. Most weekends during the summer, we pack up our van and head off to the many reenactments that happen all over the country.
“It’s great. We set up our medieval authentic camp and stage mock battles with other groups, and display fighting techniques used by foot soldiers and knights. We all love the living history side of what we do, showing the public what equipment we have, from suits of armour and weapons to medieval surgery techniques. But by far the best thing we do is to beat the hell out of each other on the fighting field, or work together to take on other groups. They should be at a week-long reenactment festival not far from Bristol today. I should be there with them, but for some
reason I fancied some time on my own, and so I took a few days off work and headed to Cornwall, and the rest you know.”
Becky laughed. “Are you telling me I’m going to Bristol to meet my knight in shining armour? Let’s get going. Tom, you may get your wish to live the bachelor life sooner than you think.”
I let everyone have another laugh at my expense before asking, “Do you think they’ll have made it?”
“If they avoided the infection, which from what we know of when it started, they should have. It’s a big event and they would have a lot of kit to get ready. We always do the same thing before an event, and spend the day before preparing what we need to take, doing repairs and oiling and cleaning everything to keep it in good condition. It all costs a lot of money, so we don’t like to go out to the pub and leave it all out in the house. We always stay at home and have a few beers the night before an event, and then we load the van in the morning and head off. What I don’t know is whether they left the house, or if the world had gone to shit before then. But they ain’t daft and if they could see what was going on, it wouldn’t take them long to realise that the impossible had happened.
“If they’d avoided getting infected and left the house, but ran into trouble, then they would have a van full of swords, battle axes and maces, and the necessary skills to defend themselves.”
We were all intrigued by the vision of a group of armour-clad knights fighting through the streets of a modern city.
“How many do you share a house with?” I asked
“There are six of us. If you want, I can tell you about them.” We all wanted to hear more, so we told him to carry on.
“Ian Beaver is my best mate and chief trouble maker. He’s massive. Six foot seven, and weighs in at twenty stone. He used to play prop in rugby for the county. In reenactments we use him as our main battle tank, no one can stand up to one of his charges. He’s like a ten-pin bowling ball getting a strike.
Zombie Castle Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 22
