He stood there facing them. He was dressed in working gear, wearing work boots and a hi-viz vest. He had recovered slightly from his exertions, but still had a sheen of sweat on him and he looked terrified. They thought that if they said ‘boo’ he would turn and run another mile.
“Oh, hi,” said Dave, “Are you okay? How long have they been chasing you? You looked to be on your last legs there. I bet you were glad to see us when you did.” He shook his head.
“I’m sorry, but who the HELL are you and what is going on?” He pointed in the direction of the bodies lying piled before the gate.
“All I know is I came across a pile-up on the M4. It was a complete mess. I got out to help, and it must have only just happened, because no emergency services were there. Then I saw those things attacking and eating others. Another guy and myself tried to intervene but he got attacked.” He paused, reliving it. “I barely got away myself. A few started following me and I’ve been running ever since, I just couldn’t shake them. More kept joining them. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep going when I saw you lot.” He stopped again and held his hands up. “Just tell me why the hell you’re dressed like that, can you?” Geoff had just opened his mouth to reply when Marc shouted.
“I think we’ve got more coming.” Everyone turned.
A few staggering figures could be seen in the distance, coming down the lane, following the same route the others had.
“The good news is there doesn’t seem as many as before,” said Simon, returning from the van with an armful of water bottles. He handed them out.
“Let’s rehydrate and get ready again.”
“Rehydrate!” scoffed Jamie. “Bloody fitness instructors. Next you’ll be telling us ‘Today’s pain is tomorrows muscle,’ or whatever bollocks you keep spouting to whoever is stupid enough to give you money.” Marc laughed as he bent to pick up his pike. “There you go again.” Ian took command again.
“Everyone check each other’s gear. Make sure everything is done up right. Come on, lads, the gate worked last time for us, it will again.” The new arrival walked closer.
“I still haven’t got a clue what’s going on, but you guys saved my life just now. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Good man,” said Ian. “We could always use someone to watch our backs.” He pointed up the slope to where the vans were parked. “If you look in the back of the blue van, there’s a pile of weapons inside. Pick what you want and then come back here. If you could watch our backs and let us know if we’re in any danger, that would be great.” Ian turned to walk towards the gate, but turned back to face him.
“But remember the only way to kill them is to hit the brain.” They formed the shield wall at the gates again and waited for the zombies to appear around the corner.
“Here they come,” muttered Jamie, “Come on, lads, once more.”
“Come on, let’s get their attention again,” Ian shouted, and banged his axe against his shield. He’d just got through the first half of ‘They shall not pass’ when the words died on his lips. Simon issued a strangled cry, “Oh, sweet Jesus, no, please no.” Around ten children, who looked to age from five or so to teenagers, had rounded the corner. They were all zombies, some showing horrific wounds and bite marks and others no sign of injury at all.
“No, no, no!” everyone said in unison.
“What do we do, guys?” asked Ian, quieter this time. “Where have they come from?”
“Probably the same place the others have. They have shorter legs, so shorter strides. They just lagged behind and have caught up now. Shit, what do we do? It’s kids, for pity’s sake. I just don’t know if I can,” Jamie replied sadly.
In the silence that followed, the zombie children got closer and closer. The groans and growls they emitted even sounded higher pitched and childlike.
“I’ll do it,” Marc said quietly. “I’ve just had to kill my own wife and watch my beautiful son kill himself. If they were my kids, I wouldn’t want them to suffer any more. We must do it. It’s the right thing to do. They’re not children anymore. Their parents wouldn’t want them like this. It’s going to kill another part of me to do it, but it’s what we need to do.” With tears running down his face, Ian said,
“He’s right. Come on, let’s just do this.”
The lead zombie used to be a little girl, heartbreakingly dressed in her pyjamas. The only sign of injury was some blood that ran down her face from a cut on the hairline. Everyone paused, appalled by what they were about to do, and unable to bring themselves to strike. The young zombie got closer, the others not far behind. Not one of the guys now didn’t have tears streaming down his face.
As the young girl reached out to grab Geoff’s shield, he shouted to the heavens.
“Fuck it!” He gave the girl a hard shove with his shield, she stumbled backwards, her arms still trying to reach him, and her face a terrible vision of snarling and snapping teeth. As she fell over, he immediately stepped forward and smashed his Mace into her skull. The small head burst apart. Her body gave a last twitch and lay still, her head a ruined mess, the pink spotted pyjamas the only clue to what she had once been. Someone’s little baby girl, loved and pampered by her father, as all girls are. Now she was gone forever.
Geoff broke down completely and fell to his knees, staring at what he had done, his whole body shaking with the emotions he was pouring out.
Seeing he was out the fight, Ian stepped in front of him to protect him from the others, who were only yards away. He suddenly gave a great roar and threw his shield to the floor. Standing still for a moment, his huge battle axe held with both hands, he stepped forward and attacked the nearest zombies with wild powerful swings of his axe. This galvanised the rest into action, and as one, they stepped forward to do what their worst nightmares couldn’t conjure up; killing zombie children.
The small bodies stood no chance against heavy weapons swung by arms powered by anger and sorrow. Soon the five other friends stood amongst the carnage they had caused. They stood silently, not able to look each other in the eye, contemplating what they had just had to do. One minute went by, then two.
The prolonged silence was broken by Ian.
“Come on, lads. Let’s just get out of here. There’s nothing more we can do, let’s stick to the plan and get back to our house. The longer we leave it, the worse it’s going to get, I imagine.”
Five sets of eyes looked at each other and nodded. They turned back towards the gate and walked toward Geoff, who was still kneeling on the floor, staring at the girl he had killed. Jamie knelt beside him and put his hand on his shoulder, saying quietly.
“Come on, mate, you had no choice. You did the bravest thing I’ve ever seen and struck first. If it hadn’t been for you, I don’t think any of us would have had the strength to do it.” He helped him to his feet and gave him a brotherly hug.
Geoff shook himself down, akin to a dog shaking the water out of his wet fur when emerging from a pond. The act recovered him, shaking off the despair his actions had caused him. He looked towards the pile of bodies, the young ones and the older ones now lying together where they’d been felled.
“We need to move them. That’s our only way out and the vans won’t get over them.” Walking towards them again, he called over his shoulder,
“Come on, lads, it won’t take long. Take care, though, we’ve seen too many films where this is when one of us gets bitten, thinking they’re all dead.”
The new arrival, without saying a word, walked with them, joining them in dragging limp corpses to the side of the road.
Ten minutes later, a lane wide enough to get the vans through had been cleared. Geoff had insisted that he would move the pyjama-clad girl on his own, laying her gently, separately from the other piled corpses. He spent a few minutes gathering wild flowers that were growing along the hedgerow, placing them carefully over her ruined skull, hiding the devastation he had caused.
The group walked back towards the van
s.
“What’s your story, mate?” Jamie asked the new arrival.
He was called Jon King and was a carpenter who lived in Birmingham. He’d got a contract through a friend of his to help set up a music festival near Bath, and he was on his way there after leaving his home in the early hours of the morning. When he was on the M4 motorway, he came across the pile-up he’d mentioned earlier. He was about the same height as Ian, but stick-thin.
“You ain’t from Birmingham with an accent like that,” said Ian, standing next to him.
“No, cocker. I’m from Yorkshire, but I moved down about ten years ago when work dried up at home. Been in Moseley ever since, spadge.”
His use of colloquial expressions that only Yorkshire folk used, and his broad Yorkshire accent took some understanding, but he was a nice bloke. They explained to him what they thought had happened, through what they had already seen and done, and what the news reports and video feeds they’d found had told them. Then they explained why they were dressed up as medieval knights. He took it all in and in typical blunt northern fashion, agreed that if they were right and the world had gone to shit, then he’d better stick with them for a while until the full picture emerged.
Jamie had heard the bit about him living in Moseley in Birmingham, and they started chatting about what Jamie had picked up from the place during his visits to his mate, Chris. He found and showed Jon the video they’d seen earlier of the police car crashed into the pub in Moseley. It proved that they truly lived in a global village, because Jon said he knew of Jamie’s friend Chris, when Jamie had shown him a picture of him on his phone, and they discovered they also had various mutual friends around Moseley.
With nothing else to keep them in the field, they split themselves between the two vans and began the journey to try to reach their home.
They had become seven.
Chapter ten
The first few miles of the journey were uneventful. The road was empty apart from the occasional abandoned car. It looked as if some had either crashed into each other or had run off the road into walls or trees. The spookiest were the cars with their engines still running, stopped on the road, usually with doors left open, indicating the rapid evacuation the occupants had been forced to make.
Geoff, Dave, Jamie and Ian were in the lead van, as they knew the way. Simon had got into Marc’s van, along with the latest addition, Jon, in case they got separated. It wasn’t easy or by any means comfortable to travel with chain armour on, but taking it off was not an option, as no one knew what they were going to face.
As they neared Bristol, blue flashing lights from a police car could be seen in the distance, heading towards them. The car rapidly drew closer, screeching to a halt and ending broadside in front of them, blocking the road ahead. The police car was in a state, with dents all over it and blood smeared across the bonnet and side panels.
The two policemen inside the car stared at the vans for a few moments before opening their door and stepping warily out. Geoff and Ian opened their doors and stepped out, holding their weapons. As soon as the two policemen saw the two large men step from the van, wearing armour, paper face masks and hefting an axe and a mace, they reached for their batons, and with a snap of their wrists, extended them, screaming for Geoff and Ian to stand still and drop their weapons.
Ian shouted at them, “Don’t be fucking stupid, have you seen the zombies out there? I ain’t letting go of my weapon for nobody. Now calm down. We ain’t going to attack you or anything, we just want to know what’s going on.
We’ve been attacked, we’ve seen people die and we’ve had to defend ourselves from those undead bastards twice already today. You’re the first signs of any authority we’ve seen all morning. We couldn’t even get an answer from 999 at six this morning.” The two policemen stood facing them with their batons still held ready. Ian spoke more calmly this time.
“Come on, put your batons away and tell us what’s going on. I think we’re the least of your worries today. I’ve bashed a few zombie heads in today, but as you’re clearly alive, you’re safe from us.”
The two policemen looked at each other, shrugged and lowered their batons. They began to walk up to them, but Geoff held up his hands.
“I’d not get too close, if you don’t mind. We don’t know how this thing spreads, so if we keep a bit of separation, it could keep us all safe.”
“Fair point,” said one of them.
“We hoped you might know more about what’s going on than us,” his partner added, “We’ve been on shift since last night, our first call was to an assault and burglary out in the middle of the countryside. By the time we’d dealt with it and taken all the statements, we then spent a few hours driving around to see if we could find the bastard who’d done it, because by all accounts, he’d been on foot. No other calls came in, so we spent most of the night on it. It was only when we were heading back to the station at the end of our shift that it hit the fan. We thought it was a riot at first, but when we saw the crowds attacking and eating those trying to escape, we knew something weird was going on.
There was nothing on the radios and we only worked out what was going on from social media on our phones.” He glanced at his partner for a nod of confirmation, then carried on.
“What confirmed it for us was when we came across what was left of some of our colleagues from our station. It looked as if they’d tried to set up a roadblock to contain them, using cars and vans. They’d been ripped to shreds. The only possible explanation is that somehow everyone has turned into zombies. We were totally freaked out and kept driving around, dodging the crowds and trying to find backup, or anyone alive for that matter. Eventually our luck ran out and we got surrounded by those things. The only way to escape was to drive straight through them, and we barely got through.
“It’s clear there’s nothing we can do, and we can’t get hold of our families, so we’re off to see if they’re safe. As far as we can tell, Bristol is swarming with them. If you were planning to head that way, I wouldn’t. It’d be a death sentence.”
Ian, still with his axe resting on his shoulder, replied.
“Well, it looks as if you know as much as we do. As far as we’re concerned, and don’t ask us how, we’re in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. We’ve had to fight them in the middle of the countryside, they’re everywhere, and on our way back we passed quite a few abandoned or crashed cars. We’ve been keeping watch, but so far we’ve only found one other survivor, and he was being chased by a horde of them, so we had to kill them all, including a load of children, which was awful but necessary to do.
“We knew Bristol might be teeming with them, so thanks for confirming that, but we’re still going to try and reach our house. It’s full of stuff we’re going to need if we’re going to survive this, and it’s near the outskirts, so hopefully we should make it.”
All the others had got out of both vans by now, and they stood alongside Ian and Geoff. The Six armour-clad knights and one man wearing workwear and a hi-viz jacket looked a formidable and strange group, particularly since Jon was still holding a short-handled axe.
“I’m sorry, but who the hell are you guys and why on earth are you dressed like that?” one of the policemen asked.
“Don’t worry, mate, I asked the very same question myself not long ago. I’ll give you the short version,” Jon replied.
He spent the next few minutes telling them his story and how everyone else with him was dressed as a knight. They asked a few more questions about fighting the zombies, and the best way to kill them, as they hadn’t fought any hand-to-hand yet. They’d only used their car as a weapon so far, but they could see from what they’d just been told that it was only a matter of time before they would have to.
Both soon understood all the basics of zombie killing. They wanted to leave, because they were worried sick about their families and needed to get there as soon as possible. They both lived in a village not far from where they were now.
> “Would you like us to come along with you, just in case? Your batons aren’t much use against them, I expect,” asked Ian.
Both the police officers could see the obvious sense in having a gang of heavily armed knights joining them as protection and quickly agreed.
No one had a problem with helping the two out, so they heaved themselves back into the vans, struggling against the weight they were carrying.
The village they were heading to was a few miles down a lane back the way they had just come, so while the two walked back to their police car, Geoff and Marc turned their vans around and waited for them to pull past so they could follow them.
Winding down a narrow lane, the spire of a church was visible evidence in the distance that they were approaching the village. It was quiet as they stopped behind the police car outside a pretty cottage on the edge of the village.
Without waiting for the rest, one of the officers jumped out of the car and ran into the house, calling out the names of his wife and children.
Everyone else quickly grabbed their weapons and followed him. They found him running through the downstairs rooms calling for his family.
“They aren’t down here they must be upstairs,” he shouted excitedly.
Ian was standing on the bottom step when they all heard multiple groans and bangs coming from a room upstairs. He tried to push past Ian, but couldn’t get past.
“Move!” he shouted excitedly, “I can hear them, they’re okay.”
To everyone else, even his partner, the noise they could hear only meant one thing. But the husband and father was deaf to the obvious, his mind not wanting to accept the possibility that the worst had happened.
Ian stopped on the stairs and slowly turned around to face the man, who was trying without success to get past him.
“Why don’t you wait here while I go and check on them?” he said kindly.
“No, I need to see them, they must be going out of their minds with worry by now.”
Zombie Castle Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 26
