by Luke Duffy
Inside the boat house were two vehicles. Medium sized SUVs that were capable of carrying seven people in relative comfort. Both of them looked beaten and tatty on the outside, covered in rust and dirt, but mechanically they were in good condition.
Beyond the cracked windows, dented panelling, and flaking paintwork, the engines were strong and reliable. Their four-wheel drive capabilities enabled the team to operate across almost any terrain and in any weather conditions. Extra fuel, food, and water were stored inside, along with spare tyres and recovery equipment such as tow-ropes, winches, and jacks. They were well stocked and could sustain the team for a period of almost two weeks if required. At the front of the command vehicle Taff had attached a large, heavy iron bumper. It was angled in the middle like a plough and jutted out from the grill, perfect for deflecting the bodies of the dead and preventing them from crashing into the windscreen.
Kyle had also worked hard to sound proof the engine compartments as much as possible. They were not completely silent, but far less noisy than they had been. Beyond a distance of thirty to forty metres, their engines were almost undetectable at low revolutions.
One of the vehicles had been salvaged from an abandoned army base when the team had been searching for ammunition and equipment. The other, much newer and cosmetically prettier, had been taken from a used car showrooms not far from the area where they had first found Charlie and his band of followers.
The batteries had been useless, but from what they could tell at the time of recovery, everything else with the vehicles seemed fine. Kyle and Taff had enough knowledge of motor mechanics between them to get the SUVs road worthy, and it was decided that they would be stored on the mainland, sheltered from the weather, and maintained by the team. Once a month, two of them would travel out and check on the vehicles, servicing them and ensuring that they were protected and in working order. Tools were stored in the boat house, along with additional batteries, fuel, and spare tyres, and any other parts that the team could find that were compatible with the SUVs.
Collecting parts for the vehicles had become a kind of obsession for Kyle over the years, and he never passed up the chance to salvage what he could during their trips. Taff always joked that the boat house was beginning to look like a scrap yard.
“Five minutes and we’re moving,” Stan informed them as Kyle and Mark began removing the canvas sheets that were covering their vehicle.
Taff opened the door to the command vehicle, and jumped into the driver’s seat while the veteran stood by the rear bumper, watching and waiting in anticipation. Seconds ticked by, but as Kyle began to edge his way forward to see why there had been no reaction, he heard Taff yelp and suddenly spring from the driver’s door. He landed on his feet, sending up a small cloud of dust as he spun on his heel and raised his Kukri with his focus on the interior of the vehicle.
Kyle started to laugh as he looked at the shocked expression and bulging eyes of Taff, satisfied that his plan had worked perfectly. Taff looked back at him. At first he appeared confused, but then realised that he had been the victim of a practical joke.
“You twat,” he snarled at Kyle, his heavy blade still raised in his hand. “You utter, fucking twat. You did this?”
Kyle was still laughing, unable to speak but nodding confirmation of his responsibility for the incident. His sick joke had worked perfectly, and his intended target had reacted in just the manner that he had hoped. Taff’s face was steadily changing from one of shock and fright to anger as Stan and the others closed in to see what all the fuss was about.
Inside the SUV, sitting in the passenger seat and impaled on a spike, was a human head. The veteran had placed it there two weeks prior while carrying out his monthly service on the vehicles. For the most part, its green and brown hued flesh was still clinging to its skull, although its nose and ears had long since rotted away. On top of its head, long strands of straw-like hair stood out from its cranium, and on the leathery skin of its forehead, written in bold, white letters, the words ‘TAFF IS A COCK’ could clearly be discerned.
It stared back at the living men in silence, its vocal cords having been severed and its teeth violently ripped out with a set of pliers. Its jaw flexed and its long, black and grey tongue, like a giant grotesque slug, waggled lazily and slipped down through the jagged hole beneath its chin where its throat had once been.
“Got to give you credit for imagination, mate,” Bull acknowledged as he leaned in over the driver’s seat for a closer look. “Oh my, she’s pretty.”
“You arsehole, I almost shit myself,” Taff admitted, finally placing his Kukri away while taking in a deep breath that was laden with relief. “Why you picking on me?”
Kyle was still grinning as he turned away to continue preparing his own vehicle and carrying out his equipment checks.
“I knew that one of you two would piss me off at some point,” he called across to the Welshman. “It’s only fair I got even. Take it as payment for smashing my caravan window and my favourite mug.”
“You didn’t know that was going to happen,” Taff reasoned. “So I’ll take this as a pre-emptive strike.”
“Either way, I’d say we’re even,” the veteran shrugged.
Within just a kilometre after leaving the boat house behind, the team once again came to a halt. They were to carry out their final area check before heading inland. To their left in the low ground that sloped towards the coast, was the remains of the small fishing village. It was no larger than a few dozen houses, and at one point in time would have been picturesque and appearing like an idyllic postcard town by the seaside.
To their front was the bridge that spanned across the narrow estuary flowing out into the sea. The bridge was made of stone, probably a few hundred years old and wide enough for only one vehicle to cross at a time. At either end, the team had placed more tripwires that would snap at the slightest pressure either by vehicles or people attempting to cross. Again there was no indication that anyone had visited the area recently.
They pushed on, following the coast road and headed eastwards. The men knew this stretch of road well, having cleared it many years before. It had taken them the better part of a year to do it, but by the time they had finished all the cars and trucks blocking the route had been pushed to the side, leaving them with a clear run for the next forty kilometres. The towns and villages along the way had been their primary hunting grounds during their scavenger raids. However, by now there was very little left in these tiny built-up areas that could be of use to them, and the team had abandoned them to be retaken by the wandering bodies of the dead villagers. Each year, Stan and his men were forced to venture further out into the unknown and dangerous land in their search for supplies.
Taff was driving the lead vehicle with Stan in the passenger seat and Bull in the rear. Mark was driving the back-up SUV while Kyle occupied the commander’s seat. They expected no surprises in that area due to its remoteness, but they remained alert and continuously relaying route information between the two vehicles through the personnel radios carried by Stan and Kyle. Of course, there was always the occasional corpse staggering along the roadside, but in general the route was empty of any threats.
In the rural areas they could risk using their headlights as they travelled through the twisting roads. Kyle and Taff had adjusted and masked them so that they were just bright enough to allow the driver to see what he needed to. In order to avoid attracting unwanted attention from miles around, they barely illuminated the road beyond three metres ahead of their bumpers, and it took all the concentration of the drivers to avoid hitting objects in the road, or veering off to the side. There were three sets of night-vision goggles between the team, with two in the lead vehicle and one in the rear, but for now while they were still in the rural areas, they would use their naked eyes to guide them, saving the battery power for when they really needed to rely on the NVGs.
“The atmosphere in here is far too serious for my liking. Let’s have a little mu
sic,” Taff suggested and hit the power button to the CD player. Even after all this time the stereo in the vehicle still worked.
For a while they cruised along listening to the hard rock tunes of AC/DC. Bull, sitting in the back and rocking his head to the intricate guitar work and the heavy drum beat, abruptly sat bolt upright when he heard the unmistakable introduction to the song, ‘Thunderstruck’. He grinned, suddenly feeling an overpowering sense of nostalgia rush over him.
“Oh, fucking yeah,” he grunted in a lustful voice.
That particular song had a special place in his heart. During the early days of the occupation of Iraq, he had been part of a search and destroy team, although it was never labelled as such for political reasons. But their missions generally consisted of acting on solid intelligence, and taking out high-profile targets in and around Baghdad. They were violent times, requiring violent men to do things that most people would have nightmares about. Bull, however, revelled in the job.
They would race out of their base in their blacked out vehicles bristling with weaponry and weighted down with ammunition while ‘Thunderstruck’ blared out at full volume as they headed through the final friendly check-point. Once clear of the base the music would cease, and they would become focussed on their task, but that particular song always helped to psych them up for the coming assault.
He could feel his blood heating up as it coursed through his body, radiating out to his skin and making him flush. His legs were growing restless, and his grip on his rifle tightened as his mind became lost in a time that seemed to have taken place in another life. He could feel his hair begin to prickle and his adrenaline to flow. His aggression levels were starting to rise, and the muscles in his jaw began to flex.
“Taff, change the music,” he demanded suddenly through his clenched teeth. “I’m getting a hard-on here, and someone’s either going to get shot or fucked. Possibly both.”
Taff understood. He grinned into the rear-view mirror, catching sight of Bull’s wild eyes and fearsome expression. Taff knew not to let the man get too excited, and that Bull’s warning was probably very real. He flicked to the next CD, and within seconds the soft tones and angelic voices of ABBA were filling the vehicle, lulling Bull back to being semi-human, and from the brink of becoming an uncontrollable berserker.
Ten minutes later and Stan switched off the music. The fun part of their trip was over, and it was now time to wipe their minds of all distractions and focus on the mission. They had reached a point that was less familiar to them. They had been there in the past, but never stayed for long due to the rapid build-up of infected that their presence inevitably attracted.
That particular stretch of road had been the scene of huge traffic jams as people fled from the larger urban areas and headed for the coast, hoping to find a space aboard the many ships that were rapidly evacuating the mainland. Naturally, with all the noise and commotion as cars sat bumper to bumper and unable to move, the infected had been drawn to the area en-masse. Entire families had been butchered during the feeding frenzy when the dead fell upon them, leaving the roads clogged with thousands of immobile vehicles and the scattered remains of their occupants. Now the people were gone, but the corroded vehicles remained sitting in the road with their doors askew for all eternity.
Taff saw them as they drifted by on either side of him. His concentration was on the road ahead, but a part of his brain remained aware of what was happening on his peripherals. It was a haunting scene. Even now, to see so many abandoned vehicles overgrown with weeds and rust sitting along the silent roads was unsettling even to the veterans. They were a stark reminder of what had once been and how easily it had all been lost.
“Movement, twenty metres, right side,” Stan said in an automated voice.
Taff squinted and saw what Stan had indicated. Two or three dark figures emerged from between a cluster of smashed cars at the roadside. They had undoubtedly heard the low rumble of the approaching SUVs, and been urged to investigate. Within seconds Taff had steered them clear of the infected, narrowly avoiding the outstretched hands as the dead feebly attempted to reach for the vehicle.
Stan immediately turned to check on Kyle and Mark who were following in the rear. By now two of the bodies had stumbled far enough into the vehicle’s path that a collision was unavoidable. One of the dead was caught by a glancing blow and sent spinning off into the darkness. The other was not so lucky. It was hit by the bumper at knee level, breaking its legs in two as its upper body was catapulted forward and into the hood of the SUV. It virtually disintegrated on impact, its brittle and dried out body unable to withstand the violence of the blow.
“You okay, Kyle?” Stan asked into his radio when he saw the dim lights of the vehicle still following them.
“Yeah, no dramas. Just bits of that thing stuck all over us.”
“The vehicle okay?”
“Roger. All good. That’s us complete.”
Keeping the speed to a reasonable pace the team made good time. The drivers took it steady, weaving in and out of the stalled traffic while the passengers acted as additional sets of eyes for them, guiding them through the cluttered roads, and warning them of obstacles and infected further out beyond their immediate field of vision. Stan insisted at setting the speed to a maximum of thirty miles per hour. There was no need for them to race and risk having an accident, and at that pace they could outrun or smash through any crowd of infected, as long as it was not too dense.
An hour before first light, and they had reached and passed through the chicane that marked the limit of their cleared route. Once through the blockade created by two crumbling mini-vans and a couple of cars that created a bottle-neck, the team was in an untamed and dead infested land.
It appeared much the same as the previous forty kilometres had, with the roads becoming overgrown and buildings along the route turning green with moss as their brickwork slowly disintegrated beneath. However, there were now many more obstructions needing to be negotiated. Cars and trucks, some of them crashed and spanning almost the entire lane, littered the route. There were stretches of almost nothing in sight, but then there were sections that were virtually impassable, requiring the team to make detours or slow to a crawl as they circumvented the blockages.
All the while Stan and Kyle marked the obstructions on their maps, noting what the blockage entailed, and how to navigate around it. Before their return journey they would compare notes, ensuring that they had both the exact same and accurate information.
By now they had left the coast road behind and were headed on a bearing that took them approximately southeast through hilly terrain that was criss-crossed with an array of narrow single lane roads, forcing the drivers to slow the vehicles to little more than walking speed in some places. Then within just a few kilometres, they would emerge onto wider dual carriageways that were still cluttered with debris and static vehicles, but were able to make better progress.
The constant vigilance, avoidance of clusters of the infected, and changes in speed and direction, was beginning to grind down the drivers. An hour after dawn had broken Stan announced that they would halt for a while in order for Taff and Mark to get some food and rest. They had roughly sixty to seventy kilometres to go before the rendezvous with Charlie, and having covered the ground much quicker than anticipated, Stan believed that they could afford to take a break.
Bull welcomed the idea with glee, rubbing his hands together and congratulating Stan on his leadership skills. The prospect of being able to stretch his legs and fill his stomach always managed to lift his morale.
Stan identified a small service station nestled amongst a number of roadside cafes and workshops—a tiny island of civilisation that was surrounded by the wilderness. The road ahead appeared relatively clear, with only a few rusting hulks that had once veered into the central reservation and twisting the metal barriers while setting fire to a wide swathe of the ground around the cars. The occupants were undoubtedly still trapped inside when the
vehicles burst into flames.
On the right of the road the land sloped away into a shallow valley. At its centre there was a small built-up area approximately three kilometres away. The town looked decayed and covered with greenery that sprouted from every crevice. Through his binoculars Stan could not see much other than the moss covered rooftops and blackened facades of burnt out buildings, but he did not doubt that the streets and houses would be infested with the dead. He did not need to see them. He had witnessed on so many occasions how they had a habit of congregating in the urban areas for himself.
To the left and behind the service station the ground steadily rose up towards the green and rocky hills, partially covered with clumps of trees while their peaks remained shrouded in the dawn mist. At one point in time he would have seen numerous dots of white scattered across the hillsides as sheep grazed their way over the windswept slopes. Now the land was bare; the cattle and farmers long since gone.
Stan and Bull moved forward, leaving the others at the roadside to cover the rear. The slip road leading into the service station was short, only ten metres long before they were standing on the forecourt of the fuelling area. The pumps stood silent, their nozzles hanging from their brackets or discarded onto the floor after being drained of all their petrol and diesel. The concrete of the forecourt was covered with creeping vines and sapling trees that had made a home for themselves in the cracks that had appeared over time. To the left was the car wash, and further on from the pumps was the main building where people would have paid for their fuel and bought snacks for their journey.
Bull edged forward, avoiding the thousands of pieces of tiny glass cubes that covered the ground as he passed by an empty car, its windows shattered, and its driver’s door hanging open. He paused to take a quick look inside, ensuring that there was nothing there that would pose a threat from the rear. He continued, sweeping around to the right of the pumps while Stan pushed to the left, covering the entire area between them, and then converging on the smashed entrance leading into the main building of the station.
