Breakout

by Craig Jones

  Rogers spotted Bateman and called his captain to him. Redcliffe walked off to join his men on guard duty but the general told him to stay, that he wanted him to hear what the next step in the escape plan was going to be.

  “Do you need me anymore?” I asked.

  “No. Take a break. You did well in there,” Rogers told me, and I began to look for Robbie. He found me first, running over to me from one of the buses.

  “I was worried about you,” he said. He shared his bottle of water with me.

  “I’m okay,” I told him. “But the sooner we’re away from this place, the happier I’ll be.”

  I could tell he was holding back his emotions and that tears were just one wrong word away.

  “Have they really found a cure?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “No, not a cure,” I told him. “They’ve found something that will kill all of the zombies. Robbie, I don’t want to upset you, but what they’ve found is going to destroy them. It’s going to wipe them out in the most painful way. Compared to what they’re going to unleash, the way your Dad died is much more humane.”

  “So… so Dad would have died anyway?”

  “I’m sorry, Robbie, but yes. There’s no cure for what the infected have become. The only way to stop them is death.”

  Robbie dropped his head and tears fell to the floor.

  “But my dad was still in there! There’s a part of the person they were still inside all of them,” he sobbed.

  “I used to think that too,” I said honestly. I thought my brother was still behind those prehistoric dead eyes and maybe a tiny part of him had been, but the element that remained didn’t want to be there and he’d begged me to allow him to die. The zombies had changed. They’d mutated but if anything human still existed within that tiny part of their brain that controlled them now, then surely it understood that what they were was no longer truly human. I knew that if I was one of those things that I’d be craving for the day that a bullet tore my brain to shreds.

  The activity around the buses petered out and Rogers called for everyone’s attention with a loud whistle.

  “Okay, we’re done here,” he announced. “Get back on your transports. We head out in fifteen minutes.”

  People left the boxes that were surplus to need on the ground and returned to the buses. I placed my arm around Robbie and began to lead him over to the armored troop transport. Rogers, Bateman, and Redcliffe were standing by the motorbikes.

  “Yeah, I’ve ridden before,” Redcliffe was saying.

  “And you know the surrounding areas pretty well?” Bateman asked.

  “Very well,” Redcliffe confirmed.

  Rogers raised an index finger.

  “Okay, good. You two take the lead on the bikes. We know we’re clear back to the motorway, the way we came, but keep your eyes open for groups of Remakes. The Romeroes I’m not too concerned about unless we’re talking hundreds of them blocking the road. Go!”

  Bateman and Redcliffe climbed onto my and Danny’s bikes and rode off. Robbie and I caught up with Rogers as he was about to board the transport.

  “You and the boy take a ride in the bus,” he told us. “You’ve done your shift for the day. Get some rest.”

  “Sure thing,” I said and led Robbie back towards the queue of people waiting to board the bus.

  “I’d have done anything to bring him back,” Robbie murmured.

  “Me too,” I said. I knew he meant his father, but I was referring to my brother. He didn’t need to know that though.

  Finally, it was our turn to climb the steps up into the bus. I let Robbie go first and as I was about to get on, someone pulled at my sleeve. I turned to find Chris Garlick standing behind us. I hadn’t heard his footsteps as he approached.

  “Get us a seat, Robbie,” I said. “Can you see if there are any spare blankets too? We left tours on the transport.”

  “Okay.”

  Chris stood a little closer to me. I felt uncomfortable. He stank of sweat.

  “Lost your place at the top table have you?” he asked aggressively.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Back with the riff-raff on the buses,” he said. “The general may think you’re some zombie encyclopedia but I’m onto you, Hawkins. I know all about your little secret.”

  So he had seen what was in my back garden after all.

  32

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said and turned my back on Chris to get on the bus.

  He grabbed me roughly by the shoulder and spun my around. He placed the palm of his hand on my chest and shoved me back against the vehicle. My breath exited my lungs, and I cracked the back of my head. The pain was short, sharp, and intense. It was the least of my worries. I felt sweat prickle my hairline and felt sick right down to my guts.

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about,” he said through gritted teeth. The rage that had been building within him towards me bristled across his face. He was perspiring heavily too, and sweat dripped down his forehead and off his nose.

  “When you and Captain Bateman went into your house, I took a little walk around your garden. I’m sure everyone would be surprised to hear what I found down there.”

  I glanced left and right to see who was close enough to us to hear our conversation. There was no one, and I was grateful for that at least. Our driver had yet to approach and all of the civilians were already encamped in their seats. If I could persuade him to keep his mouth shut, then I might be able to get away with no one finding out.

  “He was my brother,” I said.

  “You think that excuses what you did?” he asked. “What you caused?”

  He let the words hang in the air. He gave me time to think. I had one glimmer of hope. It had been days since we’d been in Usk, since we’d travelled to the house I’d shared with Danny, and he hadn’t said a word. Why hadn’t he run right to Rogers to tell him? He knew the general was wary of my risky traits; he knew he’d have the ear of his military leader.

  “You know what?” he asked. “We all thought that the second epidemic had started in a city, and it was assumed it was Newport. One of the first Welsh outbreaks first time round came from there, so it was a fair bet. Who’d have thought it all began in some little, insignificant back water like Usk?”

  I had no words with which to respond.

  “But then,” he continued. “Who’d have thought there was some idiot who thought he could save his hero brother? I always knew your story…Matt and his brave brother, saving people all over the town. A part of me pitied you. But then I saw that half-dug grave with that thing in there! Its arm reaching out of the earth like it was trying to escape!”

  “His name was Danny,” I said defiantly. “He was my brother. Not an it!”

  “We’ll let General Rogers decide that, shall we?”

  I stepped around Chris, knocking his hand away from my chest as I went.

  “Why don’t I save you the bother and tell him myself?” I asked and began to walk to where Rogers and Davis were reviewing a map on the bonnet of the troop transport. “I’d rather he shot me in the face than give you the satisfaction of having the last word on my life.”

  I stopped dead when he chambered a round into his sniper rifle. I’d been sitting next to him dozens of times, surveying the roads below us while the soldiers advanced, so there was no way I was going to mistake that noise. I slowly turned to face him, my hands instinctively moving to shoulder height, palms up in the surrender position. He hadn’t raised his scope up to eye level, but he didn’t have to in order to intimidate me. I’d seen him hit a zombie from nearly a kilometer away. He’d have no problem putting a bullet into me from ten yards, no matter how fast I ran.

  “What a do you want, Chris? Are you going to blackmail me? I don’t have anything worth bartering,” I said, my voice quivering. “Do you have any idea what it’s been like living with this? The guilt? You know what? It’s actually going to feel good to
get this weight off my shoulders. I’ve wished myself dead ever since Danny got bitten.”

  I took a step back towards him and then he did lift his gun. The muzzle was aimed right at my stomach.

  “When we’ve told the general, I’m going to offer to execute you myself. What you’ve done is treason. Treason to the whole of mankind!”

  The roar of the two motorbikes filled the air. I forgot all about Chris and watched as Bateman and Redcliffe sped back into the science block parking lot and towards General Rogers. They brought the bikes to an abrupt halt and dismounted. I was aware that all eyes were on them. The soldiers had halted their preparations and the bus passengers had their faces pressed against the windows trying to peer around the makeshift barriers that had been welded on.

  “Sir!” Bateman shouted. “We only got a couple of miles down the road! There are dozens of zombies heading this way!”

  Rogers snatched up his binoculars and scanned the horizon off in the direction from where they had ridden.

  “Romeroes or Remakes?” he asked.

  “Mainly Romeroes, but I saw at least five Remakes,” Bateman answered. “Redcliffe? Do you agree?”

  “I think there were more of the Remakes, if that’s what you call the fast ones,” the sergeant said. “But the group was definitely made up mostly of the slow ones. I didn’t realize that when there are that many of them how scary they can be.”

  “Yes, they are,” Rogers agreed. “But they’re not as smart as the fast ones. And they don’t like a moving target.”

  The general stopped and turned towards us. He spotted Chris and me and gave us a confused look. Then he ignored us and barked out his instructions.

  “Let’s get the buses moving! I want the Jeep and the transport at the front. Let’s cut a hole through the middle of these things and get the hell out of here!”

  He pointed towards the exit just as the first zombies rounded the corner.

  He ran towards his transport.

  “Now!” he shouted.

  I sprinted for the bus, leaving Chris where he stood. He reached out a hand to try to snare me as I ran past him, but I was able to stay out of his reach. The soldiers around us opened fire and the first wave of Romeroes fell to the floor. The troops transport advanced towards them, and the Jeep’s mounted machine gun blasting out bursts of fire. Davis was in the driver’s seat and pulled alongside the bus. The troops still on the ground broke for their buses and soon we were ready to go. Our new bus driver, Mooney, accelerated after them, maneuvering around Chris as he still stood stock still in the parking lot, picking off zombies with accurate head shots.

  The civilians on the bus were filled with fresh panic. Children, Robbie included, were crying. Charles, one of the new group members that had joined us, was standing near the back of the bus. I saw him look over his shoulder.

  “They’ve flanked us!” he yelled. “The fast ones are coming up behind us!”

  “How many?” shouted Mooney, gunning the engine as he grabbed his radio.

  “Ten at most!”

  “Sir, we have ten Remakes on our tails!”

  “Copy that,” Rogers’s voice echoed through the bus. “Davis and the Jeep crew will pick them off.”

  Within seconds, the Jeep turned full circle and drove back the way we had come, machine gun rattling off shots. Up ahead, the troop transport was opening fire, cutting down the Romeroes with ease. The bus picked up pace.

  “Hawkins!” Mooney shouted, hitting the handle that opened the door. “It’s Garlick… he got left behind… help him on!”

  I carefully stepped down to the door and clung to the handrail with a firm fist. I leaned out of the door to see Chris sprinting alongside the bus, slowly edging his way towards the entrance. I reached my free hand out to him. He still had time to give me a vicious look of contempt.

  And then one of the Remakes bounded into sight from behind the bus. Davis and his team must have let one get through. It snarled as it sprinted, saliva spitting out of its wide and hungry mouth. It was male, and big. Its legs pumped and its arms stretched out towards Chris, closing the gap with every stride. I leaned further out of the bus, my hand Chris’s target. If I could grab him, I could drag him on board and we could slam the door in the face of certain death.

  Our fingers touched briefly, and then the gap opened up again.

  “Slow down!” I shouted to Mooney.

  “I can’t!” he said. “We’re going to be in the middle of the Romeroes in a hundred yards!”

  Chris lunged forward again, the Remake now just an arm length away from him. I caught him by the wrist. The fabric of his shirt gave me more traction, and I yanked him forward. He just had to trust me and leap onto the bus steps and he’d be safe. He continued to drive his legs and then he stung me once more with that contemptuous stare.

  I was saving his life and still he hated me. I was saving his life and still he was going to tell the general what he’d seen. I was saving his life and he’d still want to be the one to put a bullet in my head.

  I let go of his wrist.

  His eyes became wide and then the Remake leapt onto his back. The two of them went tumbling to the ground. As they bounced, I saw the zombie open its hungry mouth and then snap its teeth down on Chris throat, ripping backwards as it chewed, tearing his esophagus open in an explosion of bright red blood. Chris’s hand still reached out for me, but his dead eyes saw no hope. He didn’t even have the time or the breath left in his lungs to scream.

  I snapped my eyes forward as Mooney yelled something incoherent. Through the glass of the windshield dozens of dead eyes met my misery. The bus ploughed into the Romeroes, and they bounced off the front fender as I pulled myself back inside. The driver pushed the lever to shut the door.

  “You did your best,” Mooney said as we pulled clear of the zombies.

  Yes, I had. Chris Garlick was gone.

  33

  We travelled east across England, along the motorway. We encountered a few car crashes that were quickly moved out of our path. More importantly, we didn’t see any zombies. As we approached Newbury, night was starting to fall and Rogers decided we’d made good enough ground. He didn’t want us to take any risks of driving in the darkness. Coming across roadblocks in the daylight was one thing. Smashing into them at a fast pace because we didn’t see them coming was something else. He also didn’t want Bateman and Redcliffe ahead of us and alone on the bikes when they were unable to survey their surroundings.

  We stopped on an overpass that was littered with other vehicles. The general felt we could defend our position more effectively if we could only be attacked from two sides instead of four. He also instructed the troops to move the abandoned vehicles to box us in with three layers of extra barricades, so that any zombies who found us would have to navigate them first.

  Food and drink was distributed and a roster of guard duty established. A message came through that Rogers had sent for me.

  “What was going on with you and Garlick before we left the university?” he asked.

  I’d had plenty of time to consider my answer.

  “He took issue with the fact that I got to go down to the laboratories, sir,” I explained. “Chris didn’t approve because I’m just a civilian.”

  “Yes, he made his feelings well known. But you didn’t hesitate to try to save him.”

  “No matter what’s going on, I’d always help another human being, sir.”

  He dismissed me.

  Robbie hadn’t fallen asleep until well past midnight, not that time actually meant anything anymore. We existed more on an incident-to-incident basis, zombie attack to zombie attack. We rested when we could, and we acted when we had to. When Robbie started to snore, I stood and pulled his legs up onto the seat so he could be more comfortable. I wasn’t going to be able to sleep. I now had Chris’s face haunting me next to Danny’s every time I closed my eyes.

  Charles offered me a seat next to him.

  “Tough day,” he said.<
br />
  “Which day isn’t?” I responded.

  “This is better than we’re used to,” he shrugged.

  “The loft?” I asked.

  “The loft? Oh, yeah, up in the loft, sure.” He looked down at his watch. “I need to go to the toilet,” he told me.

  I watched him as he walked down the bus. He paused halfway down and placed his hand on his friend Angela’s shoulder. Then he carried on until he stopped next to our driver. Mooney had fallen asleep over the steering wheel and I thought Charles was trying to work out which handle would open the door, but then he turned to face the rest of the bus and he had a pistol in his hand.

  “Everybody wake up!” he shouted, the gun aimed at Mooney’s head. Mooney, suddenly startled awake reached out his left hand and sought his weapon.

  “Looking for this?” Charles said and clubbed him across the forehead with the butt of his own gun. Charles was built like a rugby player, and he put his whole weight into the swipe. Mooney fell unconscious in his seat.

  “Now as much as I’ve enjoyed your company, we’ve got our own little group back in Bath, so if you don’t mind exiting the bus, we’ll be taking it and the supplies with us,” Charles shouted. He depressed the lever that opened the door and it slid aside with a hiss. His two friends David and Carla climbed on board. David was also holding a handgun.

  “Move it,” David hollered as he walked up to the back of the bus. “Let’s make this quick and painless. For you.”

  People began to get up and shuffle down the aisle and off the bus. Charles dragged Mooney from behind the steering wheel and instructed two of the civilians to carry him off the bus. Robbie stared back at me with wide eyes. I got up, walked to him and sat down next to him.