After they had managed to clear the second bend, the pair of them had mixed emotions. The road had straightened up and they could see ahead for many yards. They could see no Runners and there was no sign of Junior either.
Joan turned to Gordon. “This is madness. Even if he has gone this way, he's way ahead of the pair of us.”
Gordon agreed. He kicked at the ground in frustration and said, “Well, I suppose there's nothing else we can do, apart from go back and check down the canal. After that, we may as well get back to the caravan park.”
“Maybe he's back there now,” Joan said optimistically.
Gordon never answered. He didn't believe that Junior was back there. In truth, neither did Joan.
“What's that?” Joan pointed. “Over there?”
Gordon looked to where Joan was pointing and could see an archaic-looking house in the middle of the field. There was nothing around the house. It was just the residence on its own.
It was small, lucky to have two bedrooms, and was made of stone, suggesting it was probably built a couple of centuries ago. It wasn't the most striking house Gordon had seen; it looked like it needed work, but he could see it had a history, just like the small village of Blanchland.
“What are you thinking?” Joan asked him.
“I'm thinking that maybe we should see who's staying in that house, if anybody, before we go back. Who knows? Maybe Junior's in there.”
“Selfish little shit.” Joan huffed. “It's not really the time for a teenage tantrum, is it?”
“No.” Gordon tried to put some humour into their situation. “The beginning of the apocalypse is not a great time to disappear.”
“Maybe Junior isn't there. Maybe somebody else lives there.”
“Or maybe Junior and the owner are inside. Maybe the owner took him in.”
Joan said impatiently, “We could stand here all day, thinking up all kinds of scenarios.”
“Yes, we could.” Gordon nodded. “So why don't we go and see for ourselves.”
Gordon hopped over the small fence and was in the field. A thirty-yard walk and he'd be at the house. Joan followed him and both of them slowly went through the grass, looking all around the area. There wasn't a soul in sight.
Joan leaned over and whispered in Gordon's ear, “Do we knock on the door?”
“Probably best if we do,” said Gordon. “If we just go in and somebody's inside, they might freak out and attack us. They could think that we're bandits or even the Runners themselves.”
The two adults reached the old wooden door and looked at one another.
Who was going to knock?
Gordon released a long groan and raised his fist. He knocked on the door and waited.
He waited thirty seconds before knocking again, and this time a window opened in front of them, forcing them to take a step back and get a better look.
Two barrels from a shotgun poked out of the window and a voice growled at a shocked Gordon and Joan, “Don't you two cunts fucking move!”
Chapter Ten
The jeep stopped a few yards from the “Welcome to Stanhope” sign. The trip along the country roads had been trouble-free for Lloyd and Marvin Dickinson, but now they were about to embark a potentially perilous scenario.
“Are you sure about this?” Marvin looked to the side and waited for an answer off of the driver.
“Yeah, I am.” Lloyd nodded forward and said, “It looks quiet. Maybe this won't be as bad as we're thinking.”
“So where's this supermarket?”
“Not entirely sure.” Lloyd sat and gazed out whilst the engine of the Hyundai jeep kept running. “It's got to be somewhere in the town centre, or maybe just outside of town.”
“You don't seem so sure, bro.”
Lloyd nodded and groaned, “I'm not. If we bump into any trouble, at least this baby will keep us safe.” He patted the inside of the vehicle. “This thing is solid. It's like a fucking Sherbert tank.”
“Sherman tank,” Marvin sighed. “It might protect us from the odd one, but if we run into a large crowd of these things...”
“Think positive, Marvin. Think positive, man.”
“I've seen some of these fuckers try to head-butt their way through a windscreen. Their persistence is frightening.”
“Well, if it gets too ugly, we'll go back,” Lloyd said. “I've got my boy back at the caravan site, waiting for me to return, so I'm not gonna be a hero and risk my life for a few tins of beans.”
Lloyd slipped the vehicle into first and drove the jeep through the town. He kept the engine low and the gear into first. Houses were now appearing on either side of the men and there were also many side streets. There was a sign stating that the town centre was half a mile away, and with a little impatience, Lloyd put the jeep into second and pressed harder on the accelerator.
He took a right at the roundabout, following the sign for the town centre, and both men seemed surprised and relieved that so far nothing dangerous had appeared. The vehicle passed a garage and they could both see the supermarket up ahead. There was a petrol station near the supermarket, and Lloyd told Marvin that they were going to try there first.
Marvin never responded.
The vehicle crept onto the empty forecourt and parked up near a pump. There were twelve pumps, a car wash, an area to blow up tyres and a large kiosk. Inside the kiosk, the shelves looked like they still had products on them.
“Don't you need electricity for the pumps to work?” said Marvin. “Don't you need to press some kind of authorisation switch in the kiosk area?”
“I'm gonna check anyway,” said Lloyd. He grabbed his crowbar and got out of the vehicle slowly and went over to the pump. He looked around and could see that they all looked out of action. He picked up a pump, squeezed the trigger, but nothing came out and he placed the pump back. Even if the electricity was working, Lloyd was sure that the pumps would have been drained from panicky drivers in the first days.
“I'm gonna take a look in the kiosk,” Lloyd announced.
Marvin stepped out of the vehicle. “I'll come with you.”
Marvin pulled out his knife and walked alongside his brother. Lloyd tried the door of the kiosk and was surprised to see it open. Lloyd walked over to the till, where there were carrier bags, and said, “Grab a few bags and start filling them.”
They both grabbed bags and began to fill whatever was left on the shelves. The bags had pre-packed sandwiches in them, a lot were out of date, crisps, soda, cakes and anything else that looked edible.
The shelves were now practically empty, and Marvin and Lloyd had five bags full of goodies. They went outside and Lloyd opened the boot. He put his three bags in and Marvin put his two bags in.
“Now what?” Marvin asked. “The supermarket?”
“Yeah, the supermarket.” Lloyd nodded. “These bags will last us a couple of days, if we're lucky, man. We have five mouths to feed.”
“Okay,” Marvin sighed. “I just hope they have some booze left in there.”
“No booze for you.” Lloyd then reminded Marvin. “Don't you remember your shameful performance in Blanchland?”
“I keep telling you … that was a one off.” Marvin tried to laugh off the incident.
“I don't care. It's not happening.”
Marvin huffed and stomped his way towards the entrance of the supermarket, with Lloyd following him behind and asking him to slow down.
They both stopped at the entrance and could see the now defunct automatic doors open. Marvin slapped Lloyd on the shoulder and pointed at the trolleys that were lined up at the left side of the doors.
“Don't bother,” Lloyd said.
“Why the fuck not?”
“Have you heard the racket those things make, man? We need to check the place out first, make sure it's free of those things. Then we’ll grab a trolley each.”
Lloyd raised his crowbar and began to advance to the entrance. Marvin was by his side. They stopped walking once they were i
n and by the checkouts, and then the two men had a quick scan around. It was like most large supermarkets. There was a large home-base section to their left, which had gardening tools, a sports section and a place where they sold books, magazines and birthday cards. It also had a clothes section, a chemist and many aisles where the food was available.
There was a second floor, and up there Lloyd guessed that there were probably offices, a canteen for staff and possibly there was a security system where officers used to sit and watch CCTV all day and ate cakes.
“We could have a ball here,” Marvin spoke with a huge smile on his face. “We could even set up camp here.”
“What do you mean, man?”
“Well, instead of taking the stuff back to the caravan site, we could take ourselves here instead.”
“No chance.” Lloyd shook his head in disagreement. “We're better off in the country. Anyway, have you never seen Dawn of the Dead?”
“So what then?”
“Like I originally planned, we’ll have a look around first,” Lloyd suggested. “Then we fill the trolleys up with essentials like water, tins of food ... that kind of thing.”
The two men crept across the floor where the checkouts were, looking down every aisle as they did so. People had been here. There were tins scattered across the aisle and bust open milk cartons, but there was no blood present on the floor. They reached the end and were satisfied that the ground floor was empty.
Marvin looked at Lloyd and said, “A trolley each?”
Lloyd nodded. “Sure thing.”
They sauntered down the aisle with a slight swagger and went back outside briefly to grab a couple of trolleys. Most were chained up and required a pound coin to be inserted to release one, but there were a few scattered across the road.
They took one each and winced when they began to push the noisy things. The noise from the trolleys wasn't as bad as they reached the smooth floor of the establishment, but they were still making a clattering noise.
“Food tins and water first,” Lloyd said to his brother, and warned him with his tongue planted in his cheek. “And avoid the booze section.”
“Yes, Fuehrer.” Marvin gave Lloyd a Nazi salute and the two of them went to the tin section first where beans and other kinds of tinned produce was available. There wasn't much left, but there was enough to fill their trolleys, including the tins that were left on the floor.
Marvin had emptied a shelf and was now picking up tins from the floor and throwing them into the trolley from a few yards like a basketball player.
“Marvin,” an exasperated Lloyd sighed. “A bit of stealth, please.”
“Stealth?” Marvin laughed and pointed at the old trolleys. “A bit late for that now, with these rickety things.”
“I'm not gonna argue with you.”
“Good,” Marvin laughed.
“I just...” Lloyd didn't manage to finish his sentence and gazed at his brother, wide-eyed. “Did you hear that?”
“No.” Marvin shook his head and both brothers remained still, listening out for anything else. Then they both heard it.
A bang coming from above them was now heard from both men.
Marvin gulped. “I did now.”
Chapter Eleven
Gordon and Joan remained standing and glared at the shotgun that was pointing at the pair of them, hoping it wasn't going to go off. Gordon gulped and was about to speak up, but the man holding the shotgun from inside the small stone house spoke first.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he bellowed.
“We're looking for a boy?” Joan began. “We're staying at the caravan site, up the road, and we had an argument...” She paused and looked at Gordon.
“Go on!” the voice growled.
“We were wondering if he was here.”
“And why the fuck would he be here?”
“We're just wondering.” This time Gordon decided to speak. “Apart from the canal, we don't know where he could have got to.”
“Son of yours, eh?” the voice asked.
Joan shook her head. “No. He's the son of a friend of ours.”
“Well, the little cunt's not here,” the voice snarled. “So why don't you do me a favour and fuck off before I fill the pair of you with pellets.”
Gordon and Joan glanced at one another, unsure whether to move or not. If they made a sudden move, would this nervous, angry man end up squeezing the trigger?
“How long have you been here?” Gordon spoke up, asking the man a question. “Is this your home?”
“Yes, this is my fucking home! What of it?” the man snapped.
“Sorry,” Gordon sighed. “I was just wondering what your story was.”
“Well, don't wonder, just fuck off!”
“But ... what was it like when it first happened?” Gordon persisted.
Gordon was beginning to annoy the man as well as Joan, who just wanted to get the hell out of the place. Being shot and having an injury was a death sentence in this new world.
“It was chaos, what do you think?” snarled the aggressive individual. “What else you wanna know? You wanna know how big my dick is? Is that what you want?”
“Jeez, you don't have to be rude,” Gordon moaned.
“Look,” said Joan. “We haven't come here to cause trouble, we just wanted to see if Junior's here. He's obviously not, so we'll bid you a good day.”
Joan turned to Gordon and took a hold of his sleeve and told him that they were leaving, but Gordon wasn't budging.
“Gordon,” Joan said with her teeth clenched. “Let's go.”
Gordon shook his head.
“Better do what your girlfriend’s telling you, otherwise you may die today.”
“I'm not going anywhere,” said Gordon, surprising Joan.
“Don't do this, Gordon,” she said softly.
“I'm not going anywhere until I've had a look around his place.” Gordon turned to Joan and added, “How do we know he hasn’t got Junior in there?”
“I’m no fucking pervert, if that’s what you’re thinking,” the voice from behind the gun roared.
“I'm going in,” said Gordon, and began to stroll to the main door of the house, ignoring protests from Joan and the gun owner. Gordon looked over to the window where the shotgun was sticking out and added, “If you need to shoot me, go ahead.”
Gordon tried the door and was surprised that it opened. The wooden thing swung open and Gordon stepped inside. Joan was behind him, still moaning at him to get back by her side, but her words were falling on deaf ears.
Gordon stepped into the dark living room of the place and was greeted by the shotgun-wielding man. The barrels of the weapon were pointing at Gordon, but Gordon told the man that all he wanted to do was check the house and then he'd be on his way. There was no second floor to the place, so the check wasn't going to take long.
Gordon could see that the man of the house was in his late sixties, had a full grey beard and grey hair that ran to his shoulders.
Joan bravely stepped inside and looked to her right. She could see the man of the house in his living room. The deflated man now had the gun by his side. He had given up trying to reason with these folk, especially the male, and sat in his armchair, lying the gun on the floor.
Joan stepped into the living room and sat on the man's dusty couch. She was now opposite the elderly man and was facing him.
The old man growled, “Sit down, why don't you?”
“Sorry,” Joan said, realising that she was being rude. She had entered the man's house and sat down without his permission.
The man and Joan sat in silence and then Gordon stepped into the room, claw hammer hanging out of his pocket, and announced, “He's not here.” He then turned to the old man and said, “I'm sorry.”
“I fucking told you there was no one here, didn't I?”
“It was a stupid thing to do, Gordon,” said Joan and nodded at the gun that was lying on the floor. “He could have shot you.”
/>
The old man shook his head and sighed, “Wouldn't have happened.”
“No?”
“No. The gun's not even loaded.” He then turned to Gordon and added, “And you, Rambo, get your arse into the kitchen.”
“What?” Gordon scratched his head in confusion. “Why?”
“There's a camp-stove and pair of matches on the side. Go and boil some water. You pair of twats may as well have a cup of tea before you leave.”
*
Junior Dickinson wasn't planning on going far.
He was only fifty yards or so from the exit of the caravan site and had decided to lay low in the wooded area.
This'll teach them, he thought. This'll teach them for treating me like a stupid kid. Especially that Gordon prick. Once my dad gets back and finds I'm gone, those two are going to be in trouble.
He walked deeper into the small section of the woods and decided to sit against one of the tree trunks and simply wait. If Gordon and Joan decided to go out and look for Junior and walked along the country road by the woods, the fourteen-year-old would be seen if he wasn't in far enough.
And he didn't want to be seen. He wanted to panic the pair of them and turn up when he wanted to.
Junior hoped that this little lesson would punish the pair of them, especially Gordon, for treating him like a fucking idiot. Yes, he realised what he was doing was stupid and dangerous, but no Runner had been spotted in this area for days. These things were rare in this area, and even if he did come across the odd one, he was certain he could outrun it and make the short journey back to the site where Joan or Gordon would sort the infected thing out.
Junior had a quick look around the woods and then closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “This is nice,” he purred.
A soft breeze tickled his features and a small smile developed. It was good to get away from the caravan, from Gordon and Joan.
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