It was then that his eyes fell upon something, scribbled in the top corner of the seat, hidden beneath a loose flap of cloth. It was not much, only a name and a date, but he doubted many people in Russia would have the name of Charles, nor would they have been riding in the bus only three days earlier. There are others, he thought to himself. Paul was unable to remove the smile from his face, and the nudge he got from Leon, who had taken the seat beside him made him feel far more at ease.
“I’ve got your notebook,” Leon whispered after a while, timing his words so that they were covered by the din of the heavily revved engine.
“Thank you,” Paul managed in response before the glare from the guards silenced him.
After driving for what felt like days, but was in actual fact not much more than an hour or two, they came to a stop. Before them was a tall wall, its top wrapped with barbed wire. Spaced every hundred meters or so, was a small pillar, equally decorated with the wire, but topped with a security camera.
The guards muttered something into their radios, and then left the bus. Even with them gone, the silence remained.
After a few seconds, the guards from the other bus arrived and the sound of their chatter filled the air. While none could understand their words, the tone of the conversation was unmistakable: apprehension, confusion, and even an undertone of fear.
“Something’s gone wrong,” Leon whispered, to the bus as a whole. The soldier’s voices escalated to the point of confrontation, and only stopped when one of them appeared on Paul’s bus. His face was pale, his eyes wide, and as he surveyed them all, there was a distinct trembled in his hands. His eyes fell on a young girl; she couldn’t have been more than eighteen.
“You… come,” he managed in strained English.
The girl, who refused to make eye contact with the man, didn’t move. The soldier reached out and grabbed her by her long dirty blonde hair and hauled her from the bus, his own Russian growls almost as loud as her cries. A protest went up inside the bus, but fell silent the moment the soldier pulled a pistol from his hip and waved it at them all. He shouted a warning in Russian and then disappeared, pushing the still shrieking girl before him.
“I don’t like this,” Paul took the chance to whisper to the bus.
The girl continued to scream and fight, until the ear splitting wail of a heavy gate being opened on hinges no longer fit for the task drowned her out.
Looking through the front window, Paul saw the complex they had been brought to appear from behind the heavily fortified entry. Even the gate had been covered with brick, to create the illusion of no entry. The inside was overgrown. Tall weeds and grass loomed large. A single path ran straight as an arrow through the complex. On either side of the path were single story wooden shacks. The construction appeared as stable as the European economy. The thing Paul didn’t see was signs of life.
“Go, go,” One of the soldiers ordered, jabbing the whimpering blond girl in the small of the back, forcing her over the threshold and into the compound. “Walk….Walk, you walk,” he ordered.
Small shuffling steps took the girl deeper and deeper beyond the walls. After a few moments, the soldiers began to relax. Their chatter started once more. They turned and ordered the busses to empty. It only took three shouts and a wave of their rifles for their orders to be understood and obeyed.
It took less than five minutes for them to empty the busses and stand in a shambolic line up.
“Where’s the girl?” Paul asked while the soldiers were busy taking a headcount, and recording something on a series of clipboards. They all had their backs to the compound, and even though Paul’s question was more a voicing of a thought that dawned on him than anything more direct, each guard heard him. Their heads snapped to attention and they spun around on full alert.
The scream came a few moments later, and the first zombie stumbled into view not long after. Panicked, the Russian soldiers all fired their weapons into the creature. Clearly, they had all been briefed on what they were doing, and what had happened to bring the United Kingdom into such a condition. Yet, Paul also noticed that none seemed to know how to stop the zombie. Blood filled the air as the body collected the bullets fired into it and fell to the ground.
The soldiers started shouting amongst themselves, their captives forgotten. The figure on the ground stood back up and started toward them once more. Its shirtless body was a mess of bubbling meat. The upper torso seemed to move at a slightly different tempo than the legs; twisting from side to side as it moved. The bullets had all but cut the creature in half. Only the spine remained intact. The creature gave a growl but a final explosion forced a bullet between its eyes and it fell on the path once more.
Paul stood with the gun in his hands, having grabbed it from the belt of the solider nearest to him.
Spinning, the Russian military contingent aimed their weapons at Paul. They shouted at him in Russian, their own voices and actions driven not by fear of rebellion, but by fear of being whatever lurked in the camp.
“You need to shoot them in the head. In the head!” Paul spoke slowly, pointing into his own forehead. The Russians didn’t seem to pay him any attention, but when the next group of zombies arrived, they seemed to show a modicum of restraint. Their aim was terrible, but the bullets were at least directed toward the head. One fired off the lower jaw of a woman who looked as though her final moments of life had been spent on her back. Her underwear was still wrapped around her ankles, and one sagging breast hung from her bra.
“Everybody on the bus,” Leon shouted. The Russians turned to look at him, and shouted their response, firing into the ground near Paul and their group. “We need to move. Those things will kill us all,” Leon shouted at the Russians. Even as he did so he saw a group of at least forty zombies appear from behind the huts within the compound. “There are too many of them.” He tried, but the Russians refused to listen, and as if to show their defiance, they swiftly put a number of bullets into Leon’s chest. Blood frothed from his lips as he collapsed to the ground. He reached out both hands, taking his daughter’s hand in one and Paul’s in the other.
Everybody screamed, apart from Leon’s daughter. She stood in silence, her face pale. Her eyes rolled into her head and she collapsed to the ground.
Paul moved to catch her, but the rifles, (which were not trained on him, for he still held the pistol in one hand), stopped him. The zombie crowd had increased, and they descended upon the Russians, who never saw them coming. Paul would later wonder if they knew all along, and merely refused to look their deaths in the eye.
The first wave of zombies numbered fifty, and they overpowered the Russian soldiers; descending on them in a snarling fury which ensured that not enough was left over for them to come back from the dead. While the zombies, consumed by their hunger, oblivious to the presence of the others, continued to gorge themselves on the military grade meat, Paul rallied his own troops. Scooping Leon’s unconscious daughter into his arms, he led them into the compound.
“We can’t go in there,” a voice called.
“It is our only chance,” Paul said. There is a cabin right here. We head there, and barricade the doors,” he called.
“He’s right. We need to be able to regroup,” Monique called out. She appeared beside Paul, and looked down at the young girl in his arms. “Poor thing,” she whispered.
“Why not the bus? I’m going to wait on the bus,” a strong sounding male voice called from the back. “We can drive away,” he added, hoping to convince a few of the others to go with him.
The first of the zombies had finished their allocated body part, and raised their head looking for more; their hunger never sated. Their eyes fell upon the man standing by the bus, the others having fled away from the undead crowd – moving along a horizontal plane. It came for the man, who fled onto the bus, along with the five people who had decided that his advice had been the best. They closed the doors and immediately the man began to turn the key, which still sat in the ig
nition.
“Run,” Paul called out to the others. The Russian soldiers had been stripped of all their juicy parts, and with the aroma of blood and adrenaline flavoring their palate, they lurched after the others.
Paul ran into the compound. He knew that Monique, Tracey, Alan and Robert were behind him, moving close on his heels. As for the rest, he neither knew nor cared at that moment in time. He had no obligation to anybody, other than Leon’s daughter, Keisha, whom he still held in his arms.
As Paul entered the compound, the cold air wrapped around him. There was something stale… something… dead about the place. For the first time since they arrived – a full fifteen minutes ago – Paul thought about the bigger picture; about history. His mind was filed with thoughts about the people that must have been sent to such a camp. The deaths that occurred by nature’s own hand or under the guidance of evil minds made him shudder.
Paul and his small group reached the first shack relatively quickly, and with a lowered shoulder and head full of speed, Paul charged the door. It was unlocked and opened inward. He ploughed into the property, crashing to the floor. Behind him, Monique ran in, helping Keisha, who had started to come round, and had been placed back on her own two feet by Paul. Scrambling to his feet, Paul ran back through the doorway. He was not prepared for what he saw.
Zombies. A field full of zombies. They had appeared out of nowhere or so it felt. They descended upon the fleeing bodies; drawn to them like moths to a flame. Screams filled the air as the first of them fell. The sound of tearing flesh echoed through Paul, like a cold November wind. He saw Tim having his throat ripped out by an older woman, who dragged his body to the ground and proceeded to disembowel the man, sucking his intestines into her ravenous mouth like strands of bloated spaghetti. While many of the passengers died, an equal number reached the small shack. It soon became clear that none of the others would make it. Paul, ignoring the chill that ran down his spine, simply stepped back inside and closed the door, just as a pleading figure reached the bottom of the steps. They were missing an arm, and had a zombie inches behind them, swinging said appendage like a medieval mace. They never made it up the steps.
There was a small window within the shack, and through it, Paul and Monique watched the devastation unfold. The bus, roared to life, was thrown into reverse, and then promptly drove into the bus parked a few meters behind it. It took less than thirty second for the zombies that had killed the Russian soldiers to get inside, and even less time for the windows to become coated with blood.
“What are we going to do?” Monique asked. Everybody was sitting either on the floor or on the rusty bed frames. In the far corner stood two old wooden cupboards. There was only one door still attached, and that only held on by one hinge.
“I’m not in charge here, Monique,” Paul answered, his head buried in his hands. “This was supposed to be our ticket out of this. Now look. Look at what our government has done. It’s fucking…. Fucking ended the motherfucking world.” Paul threw his head back against the wall of the shack, enjoying the jolting sensation that ran through his neck.
“Easy, Sugar.” Monique put a hand on Paul’s shoulder. “None of us know what is going on here.” She gave him a gentle squeeze.
“We can’t seem to catch a break, can we?” Paul let out a frustrated laugh, which became a giggle and soon after a full-belly chuckle. When he had himself back under control, tears streamed from his eyes, and his side ached. “Oh God, what the fuck are we going to do?” he repeated the question posed to him only moments before, as the walls of the hut began to tremble, and the undead crowd continued to gather.
“We can’t stay here.” Robert stood up in Paul’s moment of lost control. “Those things will break down the walls in no time. It’s a miracle that this is still standing at all.” He looked around him as he spoke, as if suddenly feeling the pressure of the crowd’s expectation.
“Then what do you propose we do, Einstein?” asked Paul.
“We’re stuck in mother fucking Russia, surrounded by zombies, in an old concentration camp!” a middle-aged and angry sounding man called out above the din of undead fingers scratching at the wood; stripping away flesh and grain in equal measures.
“I don’t know... I mean, we could…” Robert stuttered.
“We could go through the roof.” Paul stood up and moved beside Robert. “If we get up onto the top of the building, we could move from cabin to cabin. They aren’t that far apart. We spread out. Three groups: one with me, one with Monique, and another with Robert here.” Paul clapped him on the back as he spoke. “We keep moving, backward or forward. It doesn’t matter. We just need to thin out the herd,” Paul mused as he spoke, his mind racing through the scenarios and possibilities, hoping that he came up with something before anybody followed up with questions.
Monique took her turn to speak; much to Paul’s relief. “We aren’t the first group of people here. They have brought others before now. Whatever happened to them, the Russians would have a fortified command center, security, weapons, and food.”
“Yes, exactly. If we can get to their stronghold, then we will be in a much better position than we are now. I know we are tired. I know that this is a shitty place to be, and I am nobody’s leader, but it is the best chance we have.” Paul rounded off the conversation, aware that each small speech he made pushed him more and more into the role of leader.
The door to the cabin shook. The frame splintered. An undead arm, raw and blistered from the cold, shot through the opening. Pus oozed from the fresh wounds and dripped onto the floor like melted cheese.
“We don’t have a choice. Quick, you three, move those beds,” Paul ordered, raising his voice to be heard above the panic that had spread through the group. “Robert, give me a hand with these cupboards here. We need to move them under the skylight.” Paul pointed above their heads, to a small, grimy skylight.
Robert didn’t need to be told twice, and had already started shifting the deceptively heavy units before Paul had reached him.
Heaving, the two men hauled the cupboards to beneath the small skylight.
“You go first, Paul spoke to Robert. Check that the coast is clear, and then I’ll make sure the others come through.” Nimbly, with the nonchalance that only youth can provide, Robert opened the skylight and pulled himself through the small opening. As he disappeared, another crash fell against the door and an entire plank broke free. A zombie head appeared through the gap, teeth snarling and snapping. The face was still covered with dried blood. The hole in the creature’s throat turned its growls into whistled exhalations. The beds were slid into their position just in time, with the head colliding with the base of the frame. The tremor in the ground around the hut increased, as too did the hungry wail that drifted on the air like the heavy stench of a local landfill.
“Everybody move, now! Those beds will not hold them at bay for long. Come on, quickly now,” Paul called, helping the first people onto the cupboards. Robert leaned through the skylight and helped lift people through and onto the roof; which cracked and groaned under the increasing weight.
The bed wobbled, as the zombie crowd continued to push against the door, while the walls also began to groan and give.
“Hurry now, come on, Sugar.” Monique moved through the shack, helping to herd the crowd into the center of the room. Seven people had made it through the skylight when Paul climbed on top of the cupboard and stopped the flow.
“Robert, Robert, there are too many people up there. You need to take your group and move to another building,” Paul called through the skylight. He could feel the shack beginning to give. “Monique, you go up next, take your group and head in the opposite direction.” Everything formed naturally in Paul’s mind. He simply saw the situation, their options and the best way to get around them all.
Once Robert and his group had left, each of them surviving the leap to the next shack, Monique went into the open air, swiftly followed by eight of the remaining survivors. One o
f the beds fell. The front door opened further, allowing a second zombie the chance to try and gain access. The first still had his head stuck through the space left by the broken panel, trying to burst through the gap. It got caught in the base of the second bed. A hole in the springs saved the lives of the remaining occupants of the shack.
“I won’t fit through that window,” Tracey spoke up as Keisha disappeared onto the roof.
Tracey, Alan and Paul were the only ones left standing in the shack; the second bed was on the verge of falling. The caught zombie thrashed around like a gator caught in a noose.
“It’s larger than it looks,” Paul added, horrified that he had not thought of Tracey and her belly before.
“Yeah, come on, Tracey, we need to try,” Alan insisted. “Paul, you get up on the roof and help pull her through.” Alan spoke as if he were talking about manhandling a piece of furniture rather than saving his wife’s life.
“No, I go up last, this was all my idea. You go, help her through. I’ll push, if needed,” Paul insisted as another crash saw the bed topple. The zombie, rather than being freed, trapped itself further beneath the frame, and somehow managed to block the door for a few moments longer.
“I can’t. My back is shot man. You need to do it,” Alan insisted, as the barricade finally began to give.
Paul looked from Alan to Tracey. He saw the pleading look in their eyes.
“You need to protect my baby,” Alan spoke with tone that made Paul want to weep, and so, with a heavy heart he pulled himself through the skylight. The air was cold, and the layer of sweat that coated his flesh only made the temperature seem that much colder.
Diaries of the Damned Page 29
