by Craig Jones
The women exchanged startled looks but one by one they each shook their heads. One stepped forward, tears streaming down her face, blood dropping from a bite mark on her shoulder.
“No, we don’t want to change…but my daughter is on there!” she said, pointing at the buses. “Will someone take care of her?”
“We all will” Bateman said sympathetically.
She lowered her head and I thought I heard her say thank you.
“Not here, though,” she whispered. “Not in front of…”
She trailed off, unable to finish.
“Can she say goodbye?” one of the other women asked.
“You’ve seen how quickly people change. No risks.”
Bateman ushered everyone else back on to the buses as the four women were led away into the woods by Rogers and three soldiers.
We didn’t see what happened, but we knew what the four gunshots meant.
36
I think that many of the people on the buses gave up that day. The Army was meant to protect us but when the Remakes really wanted to, they had penetrated our defenses easily. And to make matters worse, to open the divide between the troops and the civilians even wider, they had not hesitated for a second to execute the four women. There was deep concern that the lady who had only been scratched was deemed infected too. As the bus moved along the motorway, passing town after deserted town, people crowded around me, asking me what I’d learned from being inside the science facility with the general.
“All I can say is that you don’t want to be on this island when they start using the cure,” I told them honestly. “They have no idea if it will kill us as well as the zombies. And I learned that scientists are dumb.”
I was glad that Robbie and I were on a different bus than the one the young girl who had lost her mother was travelling on. I asked about her at the next pit stop and was told that she only stopped wailing when she slept, which was seldom. She’d watched it unfold through the window of the bus, sat rigidly with fear, as her mother was led off into the copse of trees. She’d screamed out when the final shot was fired. We had all heard that. Anyone for miles around would have heard the heartbreak. Robbie showed no empathy towards her.
“She’ll get over it,” he said to anyone who was listening. “You have to or you give up.”
“Robbie!” I chastised. “She’s just lost her--”
“Mother, yeah, I get it. But where’s my dad? Where’s your brother? We lost them too, but we’ve all got to--”
“That’s enough!” I said sharply, silencing him. I almost asked him how he would feel if we did manage to get the convoy to divert through Burgess Hill and we didn’t find his mother. But I didn’t want anyone else to know about our furtive conversation with Captain Bateman.
I listened carefully to information coming through the radio that Mooney kept at his side. We weren’t going to get even close to London, and we headed south from the M4 onto the M25, finally heading for Brighton on a smaller but much less congested road. I asked to look at the map and saw that Bateman was keeping his word. He was trying to bring us as close to Burgess Hill as he could. I had no doubt the roads were blocked and that he had seen things close to London that concerned him about the density of the zombie population there. But I was also sure that he could have taken us in a multitude of different ways. I owed him everything for doing what he was trying to achieve for Robbie. He was a good man. A sane man, unlike the general. More and more, Rogers ruled over us with a firm fist. Toilet breaks became fewer and shortened. Food stocks were still high, but our rations became more limited. Since the shooting of the four women, he had distanced himself from us. I did not doubt that if he had to, then he would shoot us all if it meant he’d get his cure onto that train.
The radio crackled, telling Mooney to pull over, that Bateman and Redcliffe, the armed response police officer, were on their way back. No one was allowed off the buses as the soldiers milled around outside, making sure the area was a dead free zone. Twenty minutes passed before the two motorbikes found our position. The afternoon sun was still high in the sky, which told me we still had plenty of travelling to get through before we found somewhere more secure for the night. For the last couple of nights, Rogers assigned his scouts the task of finding buildings big enough for the buses to actually park inside, and they hadn’t failed him. A bus depot and a warehouse had been fit for purpose and it seemed to give everyone at least a modicum of security as they curled up uncomfortably under their blankets.
Mooney opened the door and Rogers climbed on board.
“We’re heading east from here, take the next turn on the left and follow the bikes. Brighton is no go,” he instructed Mooney. “The roads aren’t great. No motorways, but we can cut right through to Folkestone if we get a bit of luck.”
“We deserve a bit of luck,” Mooney said.
“That we do,” the general agreed. He looked down the bus and spotted me. His index finger touched his scar as he gave me the shallowest acknowledgement. I nodded back, not bothering to fake a smile.
We moved on. Within an hour, I saw the sign. I spotted it before Robbie had a chance because I was sitting by the window. The boy sat quietly, eyes half shut, fiddling with the laces of his training shoes. I nudged him and placed my finger over my lips, encouraging him to keep quiet and pointed out of the window just as the sign came level with our position.
Burgess Hill.
I thought he would be excited, but I’d not prepared myself for his reaction. He jumped to his feet.
“We have to stop! We have to stop!” he shouted, his voice high pitched, piercing the silence of the bus. People shouted out in surprise, and the bus driver touched the brake a little too hard and the bus rocked, sending Robbie to the floor. He slid down the aisle, through the red stain left by David’s dried blood. Robbie awkwardly shoved himself to his feet and rushed towards the front of the bus.
“Please, you have to stop!” he begged Mooney. “It’s my mother! She’s here, she--”
“You have to sit down,” Mooney told him. “You’re--”
Robbie ignored him, pulled the lever that opened the door and bent his knees like a diver preparing to leap.
Mooney slammed his right foot down on the brake and the bus slid a screeching path along the narrow road. The tires squealed and spewed black smoke. Everyone on the bus lurched forward, and Robbie only just managed to catch hold of the grab rail before he was thrown against the windshield. Before the bus had even come to a complete halt, Rogers’s voice came through the radio.
“What in God’s name is going on up there?”
Robbie turned and looked at me, his eyes wide. I put my head in my hands. Our journey looked like it was going to be over very quickly.
***
“And you’re sure this is the town?” Bateman asked Robbie. The boy looked up at him and nodded gravely.
When we’d first stepped off the bus to face the general, I thought we were both dead. He’d already un-holstered his gun as he marched along the roadside, but Captain Bateman had brushed past us and intercepted him. They spoke, quietly but with animated arm gestures, for a few minutes before they finally called us.
The only words I heard from either of them until that moment was Bateman telling Rogers, “Remember, everyone is watching.”
Bateman was clearly the only person who was still able to speak to Rogers with any kind of authority, to garner any level of respect. I could only guess that he’d used the situation with the deaths of the women to our advantage, suggesting that another stand-off was no good for anyone.
“The good captain here has convinced me to give you one minute to explain why you’ve just put everyone’s life at risk. Again.”
General Rogers’s words were aimed at me, but before I had chance to speak, Robbie intervened.
“It was me, not Matt,” he said through his tears. “I’m sorry, but this is where my mother lives. This town. When I saw the sign, I wanted to stop and find her. Afte
r my dad--”
“Absolutely not!” Rogers commanded. “We can’t waste time going street to street trying to find the house--”
“I know where the house is!” Robbie said, sounding like a petulant teenager. “I’m not some stupid kid you know!”
Rogers broke into a grin.
“It would seem that indeed, you’re not some stupid kid, but I’m not risking my men to--”
“I’ll do it, sir,” Bateman interrupted. “Robbie, if we pass close enough by the house and you can point it out to me, I’ll go and look.”
Rogers gave his captain a confused look then shook his head.
“Well now the whole world has gone to Hell in a handcart. Five minutes. I’ll give you five minutes to look.” Rogers turned his stare to me. “And you’ll go look with him. I’m not risking more than one of my men.”
I’d hoped we find nothing. I’d prefer to tell Robbie that his mother had fled rather than bled.
“Consider this me repaying you,” Rogers told me. “But after this, we are done.”
He unclipped his radio and began informing his men of the plan.
“Thank you,” Robbie said to Bateman.
“For what?” he replied with a wink and beckoned for Redcliffe to join us. He told the police officer of his plan.
“I’ll search too,” Redcliffe said.
“The general said only me and Captain Bateman could search the house,” I said.
Redcliffe tapped his unit’s badge on the front of his bullet proof jacket.
“He’s not my boss,” he told me.
Robbie had wandered off along the road, past the motorbikes.
“Hey,” I called, trying not to shout. “Get back here.”
Without looking back, he pointed down the road.
“That’s it,” he said. He began to sob.
We followed the direction of his finger to a corner two storey house with the front door smashed off its hinges.
37
Redcliffe’s men, Hart and Brown, volunteered to help us search the house too. Robbie, now safely on board our bus, had spent time with Bateman, sketching out the interior of the house as best he could recall.
“The front door opens onto a hallway. There’s a door on the right and a door on the left,” he told the captain. “The one on the left just goes into the garage, but the other one takes you into the living room. Just after the doors are the stairs, and straight ahead is the kitchen. That room’s huge, with all the usual cooking stuff and a big breakfast table. There are two doors in there too. One to the back garden and one down to the cellar.”
Bateman and Redcliffe shared a concerned glance at the mention of that word. The cellar was always where the worst things happened in the horror movies that Danny used to love so much, and I guess between the two of them, they’d seen a few themselves. It was only when Robbie was led away from us that Redcliffe finally let his true feelings be known.
“Is it just me or is this getting a little too Evil Dead for everyone’s liking?”
Bateman shook his head.
“We went way beyond that a while ago,” he said. “I almost hope we find his mother dead, just so we have something to tell him. The child looks haunted.”
I’d considered the same outcome, but I’d not had the guts to say it out loud.
“Okay,” Bateman continued. “There’s not going to be much room in there, so we’ll send Hart and Brown around the back to make sure we don’t get flanked. I’ll lead. Matt, take the middle, and Redcliffe will cover us from behind. All set?”
Far from it, I thought.
Redcliffe gave his men their instructions, and they scooted around the side of the building. Captain Bateman removed his handgun from its holster and checked the clip. He looked down at the short muzzled machine gun Redcliffe carried.
“If need be, just shout for us to hit the deck and you tear the hell out of anything that comes for us,” he told him.
Redcliffe replied with a steely eyed dip of his chin and Bateman began to advance across the front lawn to the broken door. So much of what I saw mirrored my return to my home in Usk. The shattered door swinging outwards on its hinges…
“Wait!”
Bateman spun on his heels. “What is it?”
“The door! It was smashed outwards! Whatever broke it came from the inside!”
Redcliffe pressed the transmit button on his police radio.
“Update,” he said.
“All quiet, sir,” came the response. “Garden secure.”
“And the back door to the house?”
There was a brief pause.
“Locked, sir.”
Redcliffe grimaced. “This is not looking good.”
“Let’s hope whatever did this is long gone,” Bateman said and stepped over the threshold. The carpet was sticky with blood. It looked like someone had been attacked at the bottom of the stairs and had been dragged out of the front door, bleeding as they were torn to their doom.
I ducked behind Bateman, watching over his shoulder as he led with his pistol held in an extended fist. He moved forward slowly, his knees bent, poised, and ready for action. His head was still, but I guessed his eyes moved left and right, tracking the movement of his gun barrel. Redcliffe stayed a little farther behind but when I glanced over my shoulder, he looked equally ready to react with the machine gun held at shoulder height.
I felt like I was breathing overly loud, that the noises coming out of my mouth could call the zombie masses to us in a moment. I held my breath as Bateman came level with a door to our left, the garage if Robbie’s description was accurate. He placed his hand on the door handle and slowly depressed the lever. I heard Redcliffe creep a little closer, and I ducked a little to give him a better aim at the door. Bateman glanced back at us and silently mouthed the words of his countdown to us.
Three… Two… One…
He pushed the handle down as far as it would go and nothing happened.
“Locked,” he whispered and stepped across the hallway towards the opposite door. Redcliffe put a palm on my shoulder and pointed along the hall, indicating I should hold my position but keep an eye up the stairs. Then he stepped around me and took his placed next to Bateman. They exchanged a nod and then Bateman advanced quickly and fluidly into the room while Redcliffe dropped to a crouch and aimed his weapon to cover the captain’s movements. I didn’t take my eyes off the staircase farther down the hall, but my ears strained to hear what was going on in the living room. Finally, Bateman uttered a single word.
“Clear.”
He walked back into the hall and with an index finger pointed up the stairs, looking as if he was about to give us our next set of instructions when something shattered in the kitchen. I instinctively backed in against the wall, making myself as small as possible as Bateman and Redcliffe lifted their guns once more.
Redcliffe again used his police radio.
“Do you have any visuals into the kitchen?” he asked.
“Negative, sir,” came Hart’s reply. “All curtains shut. Do you want us to force entry?”
“Not yet. If you hear shots do not open fire unless I give you the order.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bateman gestured that he was moving forward. With his gun held out in front of him, he eased himself from foot to foot until he reached the end of the hallway and the kitchen door. He pointed down at the floor and at the fragments of a plate with an uncertain shrug. Then he made his silent countdown again, and he and Redcliffe entered the room at pace with me, feeling as ineffective as ever, bringing up the rear.
“Are you kidding me?” barked Bateman as a black and white cat mewed back at him from the kitchen counter. The tension broke like a pin had been pushed into a helium balloon. The cat meowed again, pawed at another plate, so it was close to the edge of the counter. Redcliffe pushed the crockery to safety and reached out to stroke the cat.
“Poor little guy must be starving,” he said.
“Don’t
touch it!” I shouted, and the cat leapt from the counter then scampered along the hall way and out of the front door.
“What’s got you so spooked?” Redcliffe asked with no idea that I’d seen a single cat start this whole epidemic. And then the cellar door swung open.
With the arrival of the cat, we’d all forgotten about the cellar even though Robbie’s mention of it had initially freaked us all out. Bateman was standing with his back to the door and in Redcliffe’s line of sight, so when the creature, a woman, I was sure it was a woman, lunged out through the door, I did all I could think of.
I threw myself at her. I hit her as hard as I could in the sternum and we tumbled to the floor together with a loud grunt. I wasn’t sure which one of us made the louder noise but as soon as we landed, I rolled away from the fingers that reached out for me. As I tumbled, I saw gun barrels in my face and then before anyone had a chance to open fire zombie woman’s voice shouted.
“I’m human!”
“Are you bitten?” I heard Bateman ask as I climbed to my feet.
“No!” came the reply.
“Is there anyone else down there?”
“No,” she said again. She paused for a moment. “Matt?”
I turned to face her. I could not believe my eyes. I’d hoped that Robbie’s mother would be here, but in my heart I’d never believed it would be possible.
“Jenny!” I shouted. I ran to her, threw my arms around her, and hugged her close to me. I didn’t realize I was crying until I tried to talk.
“We…I…Robbie…Robbie’s with us…he...he’s safe…”
I felt her go limp in my arms, like the news was too much to take, and then Bateman and Redcliffe had to step in to help me hold her up as her legs gave way beneath her.
“My boy?” she murmured.
“He’s just outside,” Bateman said.
“And my girls?”
The euphoria of telling her that Robbie, her only son, had made it was shattered by having to tell her about Nick and the girls. I didn’t give her the details, but she deserved to know the truth, had the right to be told that they hadn’t made it. She let out a single scream and fell to her knees on the stained floor, her arms held aloft in desperation.
