by Russ Watts
“What happened?” asked Jonas as he caught up with them. He ignored Dakota who had gone to stand by Pippa. Mrs Danick was sitting on the road, her ankle being strapped up by Terry.
“I just tripped,” said Mrs Danick. “Wasn’t looking where I was going. Stupid. I should’ve just shot it.”
“Settle down. You’re fine,” said Terry. “It could’ve been a lot worse.”
“He came off second best,” said Erik pointing to a corpse a few feet away. “Jumped out of the undergrowth. Well, I say jumped, more like crawled. See, his legs are gone, probably gnawed off by dogs, or rats, or something. Anyway, caused us a bit of a shock. Mrs Danick tripped, and Peter finished him off.”
Jonas looked at Peter. He held Erik’s baseball bat in his hands, sticky with blood. Freya stood by his side, scuffing her shoes on the road. Peter didn’t look very proud, or even pleased he had helped. He just looked tired.
“All done,” said Terry. He helped Mrs Danick up to her feet.
“Can you walk?” asked Erik.
Mrs Danick put some weight on her ankle and winced. “I’m not running a marathon anytime soon, but yeah, I can walk.”
“Right, let’s get going then,” said Erik taking the bat from his son. “I’m sure we’re almost there.”
“I hope so,” said Quinn. “They’re getting closer.”
“You want me to do anything?” asked Jonas.
Erik passed the aluminium bat to Jonas. “Just watch our backs.”
As they all trooped off, searching for the entrance to the golf course, Jonas watched Dakota. She was chatting to Pippa, as if nothing had happened. There was no way she could be serious about finishing with him. They had been married so long that it was as if she was part of him, and he was sure she felt the same. She was just confused, and upset about what Tyler had said. He couldn’t blame her for that, but it wasn’t fair to put it all on him. Jonas knew he was going to have to let her deal with it the only way she could. She would keep running it over in her mind, thinking it through, and then she would see sense, and that he’d had no choice.
A groan from his right brought his attention to the field. A zombie was no more than fifteen feet away, and as it neared Jonas, it seemed to pick up speed, as if it found more energy from being so close to its prey. Jonas waited for it to get closer, until it was close enough to smell, and then he swung the axe at its head. The zombie fell to the ground, and Jonas bashed its head in, smearing its brains all over the road. When he was done, he jogged to catch up with the others, constantly looking out for others that got too close. Killing was getting easier, as if it was just another chore to do that had replaced taking out the garbage, or mowing the lawn. It worried him that it was becoming so easy to smash another person’s head in, no matter that they were already dead. If it became too easy he would let his guard down, and then accidents happened. If Dakota wanted to give him the silent treatment, if she wanted to beat him up for a while, he would take it without complaint. He was still going to watch out for her, and she couldn’t stop him from loving her.
“This it?” Jonas heard Quinn ask, as the road widened, and a side-road led up to a larger section of the fence.
“Guess so,” said Erik.
There was a large billboard on the side of the road with a picture of a woman in a bikini drinking a new brand of soda. Somebody had painted over the soda’s name, and in thick, black paint, it read ‘Turn back - dead inside.’
Quinn rubbed her face, and then ran her hands through her short, black hair. “Not the friendliest welcome sign I’ve seen,” she said.
“Think they sell those at Walmart?” asked Mrs Danick.
“I think it’s a ruse,” said Erik. “I think someone painted that to keep people away. People like us.”
“Or it could be true,” said Dakota. “What if there’s nothing in there but more zombies?”
“Only one way to find out,” said Erik. “Problem now is figuring out how to get in.”
Jonas noticed the solid grey fence they had been walking around had ended by the main entrance, and been replaced by an ornate steel grill. It was even higher than the fencing, at least fifteen feet high, and surveillance cameras were perched atop the structure. Erik was pushing and pulling on the gate, but it was securely locked, and brute force was not going to be enough to open them.
“You think those work?” asked Jonas pointing at the cameras. “Maybe if they see us, see that we’re alive, they’ll open up.”
Erik chewed on a piece of licorice whilst he looked up at the cameras. “No. There’s no power on them. I think they’re dead. If they do still have power inside, they’re probably saving it for the necessities: hot water and cooking, that kind of thing.”
“This is great,” said Terry. “All this way, and we can’t get in?” Terry began pacing up and down in front of the gates. “What about our guns? Can’t we just shoot our way in? Blast a hole in the fence?”
“We could probably punch a hole in the metal big enough to get through yes, but that would ultimately defeat the point of getting in. Not only would we use up all our ammo getting in, but the noise would draw every dead fucker for miles around, and we’d leave a nice big hole for them to follow us through. No, shooting our way in is not an option,” said Erik.
“Well what then?” Terry shouted. “We lost Randall today, Tyler too, and now it seems like you’re saying we’re fucked. Look, we’re getting inside no matter what, whether we go over or through, we are getting in there.”
“I just don’t see how,” muttered Quinn. “If we rule out blasting our way in, there’s no way of climbing over it, even if we could navigate over the barbed wire. Damn it.”
“You’re right,” said Jonas. “We can’t blast a hole in the fence, and we can’t climb over it.”
“So tell me something I don’t already know,” said Quinn. She looked at Jonas expectantly, waiting for him to follow up his statement with an explanation.
“So we go under it,” said Jonas.
“Are you crazy? Do you know how long it would take us to dig under that fence?” asked Terry. “Need I remind you that we have a hundred zombies behind us, and no way of digging a tunnel in the next five minutes, except with our bare hands?”
“No, I think I know what he means,” said Mrs Danick. “I should’ve said, but there was a ditch just back there where I fell. It’s some sort of outlet pipe I think.”
“Exactly,” said Jonas. “Probably carries storm water away from the golf course. It came out right beneath the fence. We can crawl through it. I’d bet anything we’ll come up on the other side.”
“Probably not smelling of roses though,” said Quinn.
“Let’s check it out,” said Erik. “I don’t like the look of those fields. Pretty soon we’re gonna have a lot more to worry about than how to get over a fence.”
As they hurried back to the outlet pipe, Jonas looked around at the dead roaming the fields. Did they think anything at all? Did those people know who they were, or remember anything of their humanity? Were they just empty shells, parasites, or leeches looking to feed? They certainly didn’t worry about anything, or about others. There was a simplicity about their existence, as if they were the same as wild animals, living only to live, and not having the worries of humans.
“Gold,” said Erik.
He was crouching down, examining the outlet pipe that ran into the ditch close to where Mrs Danick had fallen. The ditch was dry, and the pipe seemed to run under the fence. It went deep though, and got dark very quickly. As Jonas predicted, it was a storm-drain, used for overflowing water when the rain storms came. The entrance was easily large enough for someone to fit in.
“We’ll have to go single file and crawl through,” said Erik. “It’s going to be dark and smelly in there, so try to relax. Hold onto the person in front of you. With any luck, we’ll be up on the other side in no time. I’ll go in first, Quinn you follow. I want everyone else in the middle. Hamsikker, you happy to bring u
p the rear?”
Jonas agreed. He knew it was risky being the last through, in case the dead caught up with them, but if anyone else had volunteered for the job, he would’ve shot them down anyway. Erik was taking a risk by going first, and he had a family to look out for. Jonas wasn’t convinced he had anything to look out for, but he had to trust that Dakota would come round.
“I guess now’s not the time to tell you I’m claustrophobic,” said Terry.
“You’re right,” said Erik, “it’s not.”
Jonas watched as Erik hugged Pippa and Peter, and told Freya that Daddy was going to go into the pipe, and that everyone was right behind him, and that everything would be okay. The girl stayed silent, her body pressed close up against Peter, and one hand clutching the keychain Jonas had given her.
One by one, they got onto their knees, pushed aside the tall grass and weeds, and climbed inside the drain. Jonas watched as Erik disappeared, followed by Quinn, Pippa, Dakota, Peter, Freya, and Mrs Danick. Before he entered the pipe behind Terry, Jonas checked the road and the fields. The zombies were close, worryingly so, but there was enough distance that he wasn’t too concerned. They might find the drain, but he doubted they would have the intelligence to figure out how to crawl through. As he got onto his knees, and put his hands inside the concrete tunnel, he pulled the weeds back in front of the entrance, trying to hide it from view.
The tunnel was cold, and the walls were slimy. The sun hadn’t penetrated inside more than a few feet, and the further Jonas went, the more he disliked it. His legs soon became wet, and it was clear they were crawling through months of built-up rubbish, leaves and standing water that had turned to sludge. There were broken branches, and more bugs than he cared for. Small creatures scurried across his hands, flies bit him, and more than once, he had to brush invisible monsters from his face as the darkness swallowed him up. To his credit, Terry never said a word, and Jonas kept knocking into the soles of his boots. There was the occasional shriek from up ahead as someone put a hand on something that moved, but the group stayed quiet. In the blackness, Jonas’s mind imagined a host of creatures down there in the drain with him, as he was sure the others did too. At one point, he heard something moving around behind him, and he was worried a zombie had found its way in. He looked around, which was pointless as he couldn’t see anything, and he batted an arm around, finding nothing but air. There was a squeaking sound, and then the noise stopped. They had probably disturbed a rat, and he tried to stop his mind from conjuring up images of giant rats with razor sharp teeth nipping at his heels.
After a few minutes, the darkness turned to grey, and he could make out the outline of Terry’s body. A minute later, and the grey turned to light. Suddenly, Terry stopped moving, and Jonas hit his legs. When Terry didn’t move, Jonas whispered to him.
“What’s happening?”
“I can’t tell,” said Terry. “I think we’ve reached the end. Hold on, I can hear them talking.”
Jonas waited, trying to listen to the faint voices from up ahead, but they echoed around mixing with each other, making it impossible to tell what was being said.
“There’s a grill,” said Terry. “Erik’s trying to open it.”
Jonas hadn’t thought about the other end. He had assumed it would be open, but of course, it was likely to have a grill over it. If Erik couldn’t get it off, they were going to have to back-track. With the time they had spent in the tunnel, if they went back now they would come out onto a road full of zombies. They couldn’t stay put though. Jonas wondered if he had led them all down a dead-end. It seemed like everything he did at the moment turned to crap. He wanted to get out of the tunnel so badly. The air was damp, and the smell was foul.
“You okay, Terry?” asked Jonas.
“Sure. Just tell me that’s you holding onto my ankle, right, Hamsikker?”
Jonas realised he had been gripping Terry’s right ankle, and let go. “Uh, sorry, kind of forgot about that. I’m sure we’ll be out of here in…”
There was a huge clattering sound that rung in his ears, and then they suddenly started moving again. It appeared that Erik had gotten the grill off, and Jonas breathed a sigh of relief. His friend had never let him down, and once again, he had pulled through. He felt bad about the fight at the farmhouse, and knew he had to make amends. Erik should lead the group from now on. Being a cop, he had the training and knowledge to deal with most situations, and he could handle himself. Jonas wanted Erik to take over on his own. A small part of him knew he was being selfish, that he was using Erik as an excuse to shy away from having to make the hard decisions, but he had been faced with so many lately that he just couldn’t do it anymore. It had cost people their lives, and possibly cost him his marriage.
Terry’s legs shot up into the air, and Jonas realised they had reached the end of the tunnel. He climbed up out of the drain, and Erik’s thick arms grabbed him, helping him up. Warm sunlight dazzled his eyes, and he rolled onto soft grass, his eyes watering at the sudden light that blurred his vision.
“Give it a second. You’ll be fine,” said Erik.
The coldness of the damp tunnel was soon forgotten once they were back in the sun, and Jonas looked around.
“Where are we?” he asked rubbing his eyes.
“Right where we want to be, Hamsikker,” said Erik.
Jonas let Erik help him to his feet, and he blinked away the tears. They had come up behind what he assumed was the clubhouse, a two-level brick building covered in ivy. There were a couple of large catering trucks parked up, a delivery van, and some more cars, all parked up neatly in the stone driveway. The drain was sandwiched between the drive and a lawn, and further away was what looked like a vegetable patch. Vines grew lazily around a criss-cross mesh of chicken-wire, and cabbages sprouted from the earth. There were small red fruits too, what looked like strawberries, and Jonas dared a smile.
“I know. Seems too good to be true, right?” said Erik.
Jonas looked at Erik. The big man was smiling back as Peter and Freya ran over to the veggie patch.
“You know what, Erik, I’m sorry. Truly.”
“Forget it,” said Erik, watching Peter scoop up handfuls of fruit and give them to Freya. “We’re all under pressure. The main thing is we’re here. We made it, Hamsikker.”
“You think we can stay here?” asked Jonas. “For good?”
“Why not? We’ll have to check the house out, but we’re onto a good thing. As long as those fences stay up, we’re looking in good shape. We’ve got food, and I’m sure we can find water. I remember there was a stream running through this area before they built the course. It’ll still be here in some format, which means fresh water. There’s probably some sort of irrigation system for the course that we can tap into.”
A thought snagged in Jonas’s mind. Erik was right: it was almost too good to be true. How could a place like this be deserted? Those strawberries that Freya was tucking into hadn’t grown by chance. They would’ve needed water to grow too, which would suggest someone had been tending to them, watering them. Perhaps the house wasn’t empty. It might be that someone had been looking after the place, but had recently left, or had an accident.
“I think we need to check out the house, but go carefully, Erik. We don’t know for sure it’s vacant. Someone could be watching us right now,” said Jonas. “Or there could be, well you know, the dead.”
“I hear ya,” said Erik. “Why don’t we let the kids play for a while? I haven’t seen them looking so relaxed in weeks. You happy to come with me?”
The way Erik looked at Jonas when he asked him if he would go into the house with him, told Jonas more than the question did. Erik still had doubts. Jonas felt like he had to prove himself all over again. He looked across at Dakota who was sitting on the grass beside Pippa watching the children play. She expected more of him, he knew that, and he was determined to prove himself to her too. He wasn’t about to give up on her, no matter what she said.
�
��Absolutely. Let’s just tell the others. I think it’s best if we two go in alone. Let the others rest up out here?”
Erik explained they had to go through the house, just to make sure, and he and Jonas walked toward the building. They took just the bat and axe with them deciding to leave the guns with Mrs Danick and Quinn, as they didn’t want to leave the group unarmed. If there were any zombies inside, they didn’t want to go shooting the place up and bring the dead from the fields to them. The house was quiet, and nothing moved by the windows, but they couldn’t assume anything. The farmhouse had taught them that, and Jonas didn’t want a repeat of what happened there again.
The vehicles in the yard were all parked up neatly, and as long as they had gas should still be in working order. Jonas was reluctant to tell Erik he planned on leaving, and tucked away for future reference which cars were in the best condition. To get to Canada was no easy task, and he was going to have to take one of the cars, maybe even one of the trucks. Janey needed him, and Jonas had already decided that once Erik, Quinn, and the others were safe, he was gone. He hoped he could convince Dakota to come with him, but if not, he could leave her here temporarily, satisfied she was in safe hands. He would get Janey, and bring her back. Saint Paul’s really did seem like nirvana, just as Erik said.
“What’s with that stuff?” asked Jonas as Erik chewed on a piece of licorice.
“This? You sure you don’t want some?”
Jonas screwed his nose up. “I’m hungry, but I’m not that hungry.”
“Yeah, it’s gross,” said Erik as he swallowed and tucked a piece into his pocket. “It’s therapeutic. I don’t know what I’m going to do when it’s all gone. I foolishly took up smoking when I joined the force. I was trying to give up when you came back for your father’s funeral. I’d quit the day before. I remember clearly throwing my last pack out. Took one last drag, then I tossed them all in the garbage. Of course, then we were locked up in my place for so long that I had to go cold turkey. This is my substitute. What with the end of the world and all, smokes are pretty hard to find. I don’t know, sounds like bullshit, but it gives me something to do with my hands, you know? I’m still adapting to this. God knows how Peter and Freya do it.”
