by G G Garcia
The infected female then stopped feeding on the young girl and quickly turned her attention to the mother. She grabbed the mother by the face and both individuals dropped to the floor. More screaming could be heard to their left, and both Henry and Maxwell decided not to hang around for a minute longer.
They jumped in the Audi and sped out of the car park, knocking two people over, unsure whether they were infected or not.
Five minutes later, and with no further incidents, they were back in the small village of Colton.
They were back home.
Chapter Eleven
The pickup struck the small crowd of people, decorating the windscreen with blood, and both Paul Newbold and Anthony Willetts jerked forwards and then were forced back once they went through the individuals. Paul lost control of the vehicle and it veered to the left and stopped at the side of the road, going onto the grassy bank. Once the vehicle had slowed and Paul’s foot had slipped off of the pedal, the vehicle shuddered and then stalled.
Paul rubbed his neck and turned to Tony. “Are ya okay?”
Tony looked in the side mirror and never gave his friend an answer.
“Wit’s wrong?”
Tony said, “I can only see four of them on the ground.”
Paul sighed and used the washer and wipers to clean the windscreen, and then he was going to try the engine. A slap on the passenger window made both Tony and Paul scream out. They turned to their left and could see an infected female banging the palms of her hands on the window, coughing blood onto the pane of the glass.
“Get the fuck out of here, man!” Tony screamed. “Before she gets inside.”
“I’m tryin’, I’m tryin’.” Paul turned the key and fired up the engine.
He slipped the car into first, panic running through his veins, and the vehicle struggled to move.
“Take the handbrake off!” Tony yelled.
Paul grabbed the handbrake with his left hand and lowered the thing, making the vehicle speed off, leaving the IO behind.
Tony looked in the wing mirror and could see the female running after the pickup. He opened the glove compartment and reached into it to take out a handkerchief. He put the window down a few inches, then put his hand through and tried to wipe away some of the blood.
“Don’t worry about it,” said Paul. “I can get that later.”
Tony gazed into the wing mirror once more and said, “She ain’t giving up.”
“Who?” Paul had no idea what Tony was talking about and took a gape in his own wing mirror. He could see for himself that the surviving IO was running after them, although she was now a fair distance away.
Paul began to slow down, prompting his passenger to ask what the fuck he was doing.
“If we don’t get rid of it and stop fuckin’ about,” Paul began to explain. “It’ll keep chasin’ us.”
“We can outrun it.”
“I’m not takin’ the chance.” Paul slowed down the vehicle a little more and did a U turn. “Hold on.”
The pickup gathered speed and the running female didn’t seem to be in any mood to be backing down.
Two seconds before impact they both closed their eyes and felt and heard the metal colliding with skin and bone, and then the wheels going over the body as if Paul had forgotten to slow down for a speed bump.
He opened his eyes and the vehicle slowed down and did another U turn. Paul put the wipers on and used some of the windscreen wash to remove some of the blood. They both looked on and could see the IO was still moving.
“It’s still moving, man,” Tony said.
“I can see that,” Paul sighed and looked at Tony, adding, “If ya run over a rabbit, what’s the most humane thing to do? Let it die slowly or kill it off?”
“That’s a human being. Infected or not infected.”
“No. That was our potential killer.” Paul wiped his clammy hands on his thighs and leaned his head back on the head restraint. “It’s probably best not to think about them as real people. Otherwise it could cost us. We need to be brutal.”
Paul started the vehicle and pulled away. The four wheels of the pickup went over the body once more, with him making sure that the wheels went over the head. Paul took a quick glance in the rear view mirror and could see that the truck had squished the infected woman’s head like a grape.
His eyes went back to the road. They were fifty yards away from the white sign and the outskirts of their hometown. They could see the ‘Welcome to Rugeley’ sign as they got nearer.
The pickup went by the sign and both men took an intake of breath, wondering what was going to greet them in their hometown.
Chapter Twelve
As soon as the Audi pulled in onto the drive, Demi stepped out into the fresh air and greeted the men, pleased that they had returned in one piece. The vehicle came to a halt and Maxwell and Henry stepped out.
“Wow.” Demi walked by the side of the car and peered in. “Jesus Christ in Heaven. You’ve got loads of stuff.”
“I hope you’re feeling fit, Demsy,” Henry joked. “We’re gonna need the extra hands to get the stuff in quicker.”
“Of course,” she said. “Was there any trouble? Was the supermarket mental?”
“It was pretty bad,” Maxwell laughed, and looked over to his buddy. “Wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Henry sighed. “We had Billy the Kid here being all trigger happy.”
Henry never elaborated on his comment and Demi never asked. She knew they were dangerous men, and a part of her didn’t want to know about what Maxwell did. Maxwell and Henry were feared through the area, but they only hurt people who were in the same line of business and had crossed or annoyed them. Maxwell was the one that was considered the loose cannon, whereas Henry, although dangerous, was always the one with the cool head.
Whatever she thought about their job, there was no doubt she felt safer in the presence of Maxwell and Henry than in that pub.
It took them nearly half an hour to completely empty the car and pack the products away, and Demi Mason had a quick scan around the street before she lifted the last two packets of bottled water. Henry was inside, and Maxwell had stepped out to see if the Audi was now clear.
“What are you looking at?” Maxwell asked her, now standing by her side.
Still carrying the packets of bottled water, one in each hand, Demi replied, “I was just wondering what the rest of the people inside are doing.”
“Well, don’t,” he said sharply. “They’re not giving a toss about us, so you shouldn’t be bothered either. Just worry about yourself.”
“I wish it was as easy as that,” she moaned. “We can’t all be as cold as you. I wonder if all the people in this street are still inside, or have gone elsewhere.”
“Who cares?” Maxwell pointed in front of him and said, “Cars are still parked in the street, so I guess that most stayed behind.”
Demi’s heart sank when she scanned the windows of the houses in the small street, and could see a child in one of the bedroom windows. It was a boy. He was no older than six, and Demi smiled and her eyes filled when the little guy began to wave at her. The child was then grabbed by an adult. Demi guessed it was the boy’s parent, and could see the curtains getting shut.
“Poor thing,” she muttered under her breath.
A scream pierced the air, making all three gasp.
“Let’s get inside,” Henry urged his two companions, but all remained standing. “We need to start thinking about barricading our place, maybe even boarding up the windows.”
Still no response.
They all gazed at the main road that curved to the right, and Demi looked to her left and could see some people from the street peering out from their curtains and blinds. She then gazed in the same direction where Maxwell and Henry were looking, and heard another scream. Two figures came running around the bend, shooting nervous adrenaline through the three of them.
Maxwell raised his gun with no hesitation, and aimed at the t
wo figures.
“Let’s get inside!” Henry yelled, but his words were falling on deaf ears, as far as Maxwell was concerned.
Demi began to move, but Maxwell continued to aim and waited for the two to get closer. One was male, the other was a female, and the female was in front. Demi could see by the facial expressions of the woman that she was terrified, and Demi Mason screamed out for Maxwell to hold fire, but Maxwell had other ideas.
He fired a round into the woman’s midriff. She clutched her stomach, where the fresh wound was, and fell to the floor. The male behind eventually reached the woman and quickly got to his knees and began tearing into the side of her neck, near her shoulder. The woman was still alive and filled the street with her blood curdling screams.
“What the...?” Maxwell murmured, unable to finish his sentence.
“That’s what I was trying to tell you!” Demi screamed at him, placing the water on the ground. “You stupid trigger happy bastard! She wasn't infected. He was chasing her.”
“Fuck.” Henry dropped his head in his hands.
Maxwell lowered his gun and bit his bottom lip with disappointment. He had no idea. He acted on impulse, and he’d fucked it up. He went over to the screaming woman, the creature completely oblivious to his presence, and then he placed the barrel against the back of the IO’s head. Before the infected individual had a chance to move, Maxwell squeezed the trigger of his handgun and the infected male’s brains were all over the road and his body slumped onto the tarmac.
“I’m sorry,” said Maxwell to the woman and aimed his gun at her head. He hesitated, and her bloody face shuddered. She couldn’t speak, but he could tell by her eyes that she was urging him to do it, to put her out of her misery. He closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger.
He walked away with sorry steps and his head lowered. He could feel Henry and Demi’s glare, but chose not to lift his head. He had messed up. He didn’t need anyone to remind him.
“You should have waited a while,” said Henry, as Maxwell trudged past the pair or them.
“I know.”
“You just gonna leave the bodies there?” Demi cried.
“It’s okay, Demsy.” Henry placed his hand on her shoulder. “I’ve got it. I’ll move them to the side of the road.”
“I’ll help,” she sighed, “but we better be quick. I’m not sure these infected folk are attracted to sound or not. And that’s three gunshots in the last couple of minutes.”
Henry looked back at his place, where Maxwell had just gone in, and said, “I know he can be a bit of a loose cannon, but he did genuinely look upset when he realised the woman was ... normal.”
The two of them walked over to the dead bodies and stopped.
“He’s your best friend and business partner, Henry,” said Demi. “And I’m staying at your place, with two men who are armed to the teeth. So I’m not gonna moan my arse off and sound ungrateful, ‘cause I am, but...” Demi gasped and left her sentence hanging.
Henry grabbed the legs of the man and dragged his body five yards to the side of the road, leaving a small bloody trail from its damaged head.
Henry stood up and could see that Demi was standing over the woman’s body, her left hand over her mouth.
“What is it, eh?” he asked her.
Demi shook her head, still with her hand over her mouth, and pointed at the woman’s stomach where the bullet hit, when Maxwell fired his first shot.
Both Henry and Demi could see the small bump on the woman’s stomach.
“What do you reckon?” Henry asked her.
“I dunno.” Demi knew exactly what he was asking her. “I’m guessing she’s about four or five months pregnant.”
Henry nodded. “Was.”
“That fucking friend of yours.” She shook her head.
“He’s a hothead,” Henry admitted. “He always has been, but we’re gonna need people like him if this thing escalates.”
“How can it escalate?” Demi huffed. “This is fucking huge as it is.”
“I’m sure this could be just the start of ... whatever the fuck this is.”
Demi didn’t appreciate those words from Henry, but she knew he was right. This could be the beginning of something much worse, something bigger.
“I hope Maxwell behaves,” she groaned. “I really do.”
“Don’t worry about him,” said Henry. “I can handle him.”
“Can you?”
“Yeah,” he spoke, and then produced a confident nod and added, “and don’t forget how devastated he looked when the realisation sank in after he shot that woman.”
“He still shot a pregnant woman.”
“Well, he doesn’t know that yet,” said Henry. “It was an accident.”
“It was stupidity.”
Henry put his arm around Demi Mason and kissed her on the top of her head and said, “Let’s go inside and have something to drink. You coming?”
Demi gazed at the road where the two people were shot. The tarmac was stained dark red, and the bodies were now at the side, on the narrow pavement. For a minute she had lost herself.
“Demsy?”
“I wish you would stop calling me that.” Demi folded her arms and groaned, “It reminds me when Emma was still alive. You used to call us Emsy and Demsy, the terrible twosome, remember?”
“Of course.” Henry cleared his throat. “You going in?”
She gasped and looked at Henry with narrow eyes, as if she had just woken up. “What?”
“You going inside?”
She nodded.
“Tremendous.”
Chapter Thirteen
“This is mental, isn’t it?” said Tony.
“It’s probably not our best idea,” Paul admitted. “But I need to know.”
“Yeah,” Tony sighed. “Same here.”
The red pickup groaned along the desolate Western Springs Road and both males were surprised how quiet the roads were. Even the events after Sunday, the carnage was very little. And so far, not a single IO had been spotted, but they were both aware that the sound of the engine could attract a few of them, so stopping wasn’t an option until they reached their destination.
They were half a mile away from Sharnbrook Drive and turned left onto the road that was called Green Lane. Their first sight of a human was up ahead, but neither male was sure if it was infected or not. As they got closer to the man at the side of the road, the figure held up a bloody machete, as a way of greeting the fellow survivors, and they could both see that the machete-wielding fellow had hacked a couple of IOs, they hoped, to death. Two bodies lay on the floor in a bloody heap, and the last thing they saw, before the vehicle went around the bend, was the man wiping his large blade on the clothes of the dead. Not everybody was hiding. It looked like one or two individuals were fighting back.
“We should have stopped and had a word with the guy,” said Tony. “Just to see how things were.”
“No chance,” Paul snapped.
“Why not?”
“That was Luke Bentley.” Paul took his foot off the gas as another Green Lane bend appeared. “He was in my year at school.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Wit’s right with him. He’s a fuckin’ psycho. He’s probably enjoyin’ this shit.”
“Psycho? How?”
They were a minute away from reaching Paul’s street, at the top of Green Lane, so Paul gave Tony the short version.
“In the last year at school,” Paul began, “we were playin’ hockey, and that nutter was pissed off that I took the ball off him. So he chased me around the playground, threatenin’ to batter me. Then a few years ago, I remember him bein’ in the papers for beatin’ his girlfriend up in a drunken rage, in the pub’s car park. I think she was pregnant at the time, but he somehow got off with a caution.”
“Sounds like a character,” Tony jested. “A real live wire.”
“The guy used to box, so ya didn’t really want to get on the wrong side of him.
He ended up with some kind of punishment for his historic behaviour, though.”
“Oh?”
“He did that bank in Stafford. Got five years for armed robbery.”
“Was that him?” Tony scratched his head and became nervous all of a sudden, as Paul slowed down and was about to turn into Sharnbrook Drive.
“Yeah. Mad bastard. Had a sawn-off, and tried to rob the place on his own. He was out in two years for good behaviour.”
“Didn’t realise people robbed banks these days.”
Paul turned into the cul-de-sac street and the car stopped. The house they needed to check was at the end and two bodies were strewn to the left side of the street, covered in blood. It was hard to tell if they had been victims, or they had been infected and survivors had put them down.
Regardless whether they were infected or not, Paul saw the infected and the non-infected that had been attacked as victims. He felt no shame in putting down the IOs, even though they were still human, but it was a matter of survival now. The ravenous IOs felt nothing when they attacked, and he had to quickly have the same mindset if he had any chance of surviving.
“Are they dead?” Tony asked, his words drenched with sorrow. He already knew the answer.
“It appears so.”
The car crept down the road and a wave of consternation hit the guys when they reached their destination. They needed to go inside.
“If your folks are in there, and not infected, man,” Tony said. “Stay with them. I can make a run for it. I’m just down the road.”
Paul never responded to Tony’s remark, and was too busy looking around his street. There was a dead body on the left side, on the pavement, but he didn't recognise the face of the dead girl who looked no older than twenty.
“Great.” Paul pulled up and looked around once again. “Out of twelve houses, only two have their windows smashed in. Includin’ my house.”
Tony began to perspire and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Shall we just go, man? I have a bad feeling about this.”
