by Luke Duffy
It was dark inside, but enough light was filtering through for them to be able to see the first few metres of the interior. The place had been ransacked. Anything of use had long since been carted away by looters, leaving behind nothing but items such as gossip magazines and novelty keyrings and cuddly toys that had no place in the new world. The free-standing shelves in the centre of the store had been thrown over, spilling books and newspapers across the floor, their pages now faded and covered with mildew. More debris was piled up further in. A coffee machine lying on its side, battered and wrenched open, and a wall mounted fridge had been ripped away from its brackets and now lay straddled across the pay counter.
Bull frowned. It seemed odd that someone had found the time to go to such efforts of vandalism with all that was going on, but it was nothing new. He had witnessed the same sort of thing many times over the years. Some people just seemed to have their priorities a little muddled up, he supposed. He stepped through the twisted and empty frames of the door, his rifle pointing into the darkness.
Stan followed him in. They both stood still for a while, listening and watching for movement. The only sound was the faint moan of the wind as it swept through the building from the open doors and the smashed windows. There was a sudden creak from above them, and then a thud as a white shapeless object dropped onto the rusted metal shelves in the centre of the room. The foam ceiling tiles, having become waterlogged through years of rain seeping in through the roof, were swollen and dropping from their fittings.
There were a few bodies inside, torn apart and scattered over the floor. Skulls and mangled ribcages picked clean of their flesh lay discarded amongst the debris. Nothing of the people who had taken shelter there remained except for their gnawed bones and bloodstained clothing. Stan looked down and saw a child’s shoe lying in the dust at his feet, the tibia and fibula bones still protruding.
Bull reached down and picked up one of the newspapers from the floor. It was dry and brittle with its pages shrivelled and tinged brown, but he was still able to make out the headline on the first page. He shook his head and huffed as he read, ‘The Dead Walk’.
“No fucking shit.”
Something reacted to the sound of his voice. From behind the counter there came a noise—the sound of something shifting along the dust coated floor tiles. Bull dropped the newspaper and brought his rifle up, aiming at the fridge that was lying across the counter.
Stan moved further in, tiptoeing to his left as Bull stepped forward to investigate the noise. The fridge was shifting very slightly as the scuffing sound continued. Something was trapped beneath it and unable to break free. Stan reached the left hand side of the counter and leaned over, peering into the area where the service station attendants would have once stood. It was dark; the fridge and the counter preventing the light from outside reaching beyond the serving point, but he instantly saw the legs and lower body.
“It’s got its hand stuck,” he whispered across to Bull who was standing to the side of the counter. “It can’t get out.”
The body of a man was squatting beside the cashier’s point. Its arm was wedged beneath the heavy fridge, crushed and entangled amongst the broken and twisted pipes of the evaporator and compressor. At the sound of Stan’s voice it lurched forward, becoming more visible as its face and shoulders thrust out from the gloom, its free hand reaching out towards Stan as he stood and watched. It growled and thrashed its head, its mangled face and long bony claws making it appear more like a demon than a human being. It wrenched itself forward again and again in a vain attempt to free itself. The remains of its shirt was tearing and the bones beneath creaking, but the fridge refused to let go.
“He must’ve been stuck here for a while,” Bull pondered. He could see a number of wounds around the man’s head and neck, and there was a screwdriver embedded into the area at the back of his skull where the head joined onto the spine. Someone had tried to finish the reanimated body off at some point but failed. “You think he worked here?”
“Do you care?”
“No, not really,” he replied. “Just curious.”
He leaned further across the counter while the dead man’s attention remained fixed upon Stan. Without any further consideration Bull reached down, grasping the corpse’s head in his hands and twisting it to the point of maximum resistance. With a grunt Bull applied more force, feeling the bones of the man’s neck crack and groan against his palms. There was a sharp snap as the head suddenly turned almost one-hundred and eighty degrees. The corpse’s legs lost all their strength and control and slipped from beneath it, the feet skidding along the floor and sending up a small cloud of dust. Bull let go of the head and allowed the body to slump, its trapped arm causing it to stay partially upright as the remains of the man continued to hang from the counter.
Taff and the others brought the vehicles in once Stan declared the building was clear. Both SUVs were parked close to the entrance, the keys in the ignitions, and ready to move at a moment’s notice. Before anything else the drivers needed to refuel and check them over for any damage sustained during the trip.
“Two hours,” Stan declared. “Get some scoff and doss, then we’re mobile again.”
It was virtually impossible for Mark to sleep. He had tried his best, but his brain refused to switch off. Hunkered down in a dark corner with a blanket draped over his legs, he checked his watch. The time seemed to have gone over far too quickly, and he saw that they would be headed back out onto the road again very soon. It was pointless now to make any further attempt at sleep, and he finally gave up on the idea. He climbed to his feet and checked his rifle before shaking the dust from the blanket and then rolling it up and tucking it away into his pack. The building was quiet except for the light crunch of footsteps as someone was treading across the piles of broken glass by the entrance.
He looked over towards the door and saw Bull pacing up and down while he carried out his turn on sentry duty. There was no one else around, and Mark began to feel confused. He was sure that he had not slept at all, but he began to doubt himself. If he had been awake the whole time he would have noticed the others move.
“Where’s everyone gone?” he called across to Bull.
“Stan’s still getting his melon down,” Bull replied and nodding towards the corner by the counter. Mark could not see their commander, but he could now hear the gentle snoring coming from that area. “Taff and Kyle are out back having a rummage, I think. Maybe even a gang-bang with a bus full of nurses.”
Mark turned and headed for the door leading out to the storage and staff area on the left of the counter. The door itself was missing, having been ripped from its hinges long ago. The walls, once painted magnolia, were now covered with grime and what he suspected was dried blood, and the floor showed similar stains. He passed by two more doorways as he headed towards the rear. Their rooms were dark, with more evidence of looting from the upturned furniture and shelving. He knew that it was pointless to take a look inside. The others would have already checked for anything left behind.
In the corridor there were more bodies, but it was hard to tell how many there actually were. He guessed that there were maybe two, possibly three of them. Now, they were nothing but a jumble of bones that had been savaged during a feeding frenzy and picked completely clean by the dead. He walked by them, carefully stepping over the remains in a sub-conscious attempt at avoiding disturbing them in their final resting place.
Outside the sky was still blanketed with thick cloud, but compared to the gloom inside the service station Mark found it intensely bright. Shielding his eyes, he looked around for any sign of Taff and Kyle. At the back of the building was a large open area with what appeared to be two warehouses roughly seventy metres away. It looked like the place had been used as a truck stop of sorts. A few heavy goods vehicles remained rotting away to the left, their cabs slumping towards the ground as their wheels corroded.
He heard someone cough close by. He turned and saw the two men s
tanding just twenty metres away almost directly in front of him. He had not noticed them at first, and again he began to suspect that he had actually managed to sleep and was still in the process of waking up. Regardless, he did not feel as though he had. He was groggy, and before they moved off he would need to rejuvenate himself in some way. Kyle was the man he needed to see. The veteran always had a stash of decent coffee tucked away somewhere.
Mark walked towards them. They both seemed to be in deep conversation while smoking cigarettes and concentrated on something in front of them. As he drew nearer, he noticed that there was a large, but relatively shallow hole in the ground in front of them. Approximately sixty metres square, it was clear that it had been dug out for a specific purpose and was not due to the concrete or tarmac collapsing over time. Mark scratched his head as he peered down into the dip. There were strange objects inside, bright orange with black symbols, and filling the depression almost to the brim.
“What is it?” he asked.
Taff and Kyle turned to look at him. They had not noticed him arrive.
“Mass grave,” Kyle nodded towards the hole.
Mark turned to take a more concentrated look. He had seen the body bags with the bio-hazard stencilling, but he had not recognised them for what they were. Now, it seemed ludicrous that his mind had not registered the scene for what it was. The hundreds of orange bags contained the bodies of human beings. They had been slung into the grave without any kind of dignity, and on closer scrutiny, he was now able to see limbs and heads poking out from the torn material. On the far side, a pile of bodies had been partially cremated. The ground was black, and chard skeletons were clearly visible.
More of the orange body bags were lying dumped beside the trucks to the left and around the entrances to the warehouses on the far side, piled two metres high and left to rot. Something must have happened to prevent the grave from being filled and the corpses of the infected being completely incinerated. He doubted that he would need to find any evidence of what that ‘something’ could have been.
As the outbreak spread and order broke down, the dead multiplied rapidly. Nowhere was safe, and the mass grave areas were probably the worst place to be. The people tasked with the disposing of the dead would not have stayed around for long once a group of the infected showed up. Their task quickly becoming ineffective to prevent the spread, they had probably fled, and left the corpses to rot.
“I was sent to a similar place in the early days,” Kyle mumbled, deep in thought as he remembered past events.
“You mean you got stitched with working in one of the body disposal units?” Mark asked while still staring into the pit.
Kyle nodded. He took another drag on his cigarette and sputtered. He was not a real smoker, but seeing as there were very little vices left, and Taff always seemed to be rich in cigarettes, he sometimes indulged himself out of boredom.
“Yeah. It was just after the Prime Minister announced to the whole country that the dead were coming back to life. My unit got dicked to help out with burning the bodies. There were fucking thousands of them, and back then it still wasn’t clear what was happening. A lot of the stiffs still had their brains in one piece. Lots of good lads were getting bitten when the corpses reanimated and jumped out of their body bags. It was fucking madness.”
“Jesus. I can imagine,” Mark replied, picturing the chaos.
“It was then that I knew we weren’t going to make it. Humanity was doomed, and for whatever reason, there was a new order on the horizon.”
“That’s pretty prophetic,” Taff mumbled.
“Yeah, I suppose.”
They all fell quiet for a while, lost in their own thoughts as they stared at the piles of corpses in front of them. The grave had probably been the main dumping ground for the entire outlying area. The disposal teams would sweep through the towns and villages in an attempt to stop the spread of the infected and then bring the bodies to that spot for the cremation parties to destroy and bury.
“Jesus,” Mark grunted. “It must’ve been a right fuck up.”
“Yeah, it was. A complete and utter fuck up.”
Mark had never been involved with any of the body collection details. He had been an electrician’s apprentice and then drafted into the navy when the dead began to walk. For the most part, his experiences of the outbreak had mainly been centred round the evacuations. He personally witnessed very little of the infected during the initial outbreak, but he saw enough on the news reports and in the papers. He also saw the madness and complete anarchy in the towns and cities. Crowds of people, numbering in their hundreds of thousands, including himself and his parents, had flocked to the harbours in the hope of escaping the mainland. It was there that he had become separated from his family, and eventually, recruited into the armed forces.
“You got a spare one of those?” he asked, turning to Taff and nodding at the pack of cigarettes he held in his hand.
“You lot must think I’m some kind of charity,” Taff grumbled as he handed the cigarettes across to Mark. “Smoke ‘em up. We’ll be rolling out soon.”
“I wouldn’t mind some of your coffee, too, Kyle. That’s if you can spare some?”
“You’re a fucking tramp at times, do you know that? It’s like looking after a kid. Do you want some sweets, as well?” the veteran grinned.
They turned away from the grave and headed back to the main building. Stan was up and ready, waiting by the door for them.
“Get your shit together, then we’re moving,” he ordered. “Bull is getting the brews on, so make it quick.”
Within a short space of time, the men were once again loaded into the vehicles, pulling away from the service station and the mass grave that was filled with the remains of thousands of people.
11
Al pressed his fingers against his eyes and saw a multitude of bright mottled colours dance across his vision from behind his tightly closed lids. He shook his head, coughed, and then spat a thick wad of phlegm over the lip of the sandbags in front of him. Next, he arched his back and stretched his shoulders before contracting his limbs again as a shiver rippled along the length of his body. He had been awake for less than twenty minutes and still felt dazed, but the cold morning air was helping to wake him up. He had slept far longer than he had planned to, and going by the way he was feeling he could have slept through the entire day, but he would not allow himself any more rest. There was much to be done, and he could never allow the others to take up his slack.
“Why didn’t you wake me sooner?” he asked while trying his best to stifle a yawn.
“I needed you well rested,” Tina replied. “You’d be no good to any of us if you were collapsing from exhaustion.”
Al checked his watch. He had done the same thing a dozen times since crawling out from his bed, but it was still not registering properly. It was now mid-morning, and he began to feel anxious, as though they were wasting time unnecessarily.
“Yeah, but—”
“But nothing, Al. I suspect that there’s going to be some rough times ahead of us, and while there was the chance, I wanted you to catch up on some down time before the fun and games really begin.”
In the light of the day they were able to see more clearly the gravity of the situation that they now faced. It was almost like a feeling of deja vu for Al. Less than twenty-four hours earlier, he had been in a nearly identical situation with Tommy while trapped at the top of the multi-storey car-park.
“Here we go again,” he sighed.
The perimeter of the base was now a hundred metres thick with the infected. The outer, lower walls did nothing to hold them back, and acted as a mere obstacle that needed bypassing. The space between the two layers of T-walls was packed with the screaming corpses, and with the ammunition and fuel that they had remaining, it would be impossible to force them to retreat again. It seemed that every reanimated cadaver in the district had been attracted to the area around the base.
Their noise was r
elentless; the hum of their conjoined moans, the wails of excitement, and the steady drumbeat of their bodies against the walls and barriers, gnawed at the minds of the living. Their stink was almost as frightening as their sound. It permeated the base completely, crawling over the walls and filtering through even the smallest of cracks. Most of the guards had taken to wearing makeshift masks made from scented scraps of cloth to cover their mouths and noses.
“There’s so many of them,” Tina shuddered.
“Yeah,” Al nodded. “I’ve never seen so many of them in one place.”
“Me neither. Even in Colchester at the beginning, there wasn’t this many.”
“There’ll be even more of them soon, Tina.”
“Yeah, I know,” she replied thoughtfully.
She was looking down into the crowds of bobbing heads and outstretched arms. There was one in particular that caught her attention. It looked no different than any of the others. It was heavily decomposed and difficult to tell whether it was male or female. But it was staring straight back at her. Even as the bodies around it swarmed and pushed, tearing at one another, its eyes remained locked on hers.
“It’s sometimes hard to believe that these things were once human.”
“Don’t get sentimental on me, boss. They’re dead now, and that’s all there is to it.”
Al was amazed at their sheer numbers and wondered how the base could possibly hold out against them. In the early days they had barely managed, and back then they had been blessed with an abundance of ammunition, fuel, and troops. Now they were down to the bare minimum, and there seemed to be many more of the infected than there had ever been in the past, and more were arriving by the hour.
There was a loud splash to their right as a deluge of fluid was tipped over the side of the wall. They turned to see one of the militia holding a large bucket, bashing the lip against the concrete to dislodge some of the heavier material that remained inside. With a final shove and a heave, the man tipped the remainder of the latrine over the side. Dark sludge spilled from the container, spattering over the heads of the infected below who then proceeded to fight and tear at each other, biting into one another as they attempted to eat the human waste. The soldier began to laugh and hurl abuse at the thrashing bodies that were coated in excrement.
