by Monroe, Kady
She stared at him. He glanced back, then looked guiltily away.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
Clive was keeping his thoughts to himself.
A few minutes later, Matt asked her,
“Are you Ok?”
“Yes, it didn’t get me.”
“No. I meant, are you Ok?”
“Oh, yes. Still shaky, but Ok.”
“Yeah, me too. Do you feel guilty?”
She looked at him, sighed and lowered her eyes, saying, “Yes.”
“Me too,” he replied, “I know he was already dead, but...”
“Yes, I know.”
They were travelling along the North East side of the Peak District National Park. Matt had gained the latest roadmap atlas of Great Britain from the petrol station. It sat beneath the windscreen, pages spread to show a map of the local area. He said he was taking the road across Saddleworth Moor so they could avoid the population of Huddersfield and come out to the North East of Manchester.
Jenny lifted the map and examined the pages. When she located the correct location they were in, she saw a red line, indicating the A635 road, running across the Moor. She put the book back on the windscreen shelf and watched out the window for signs to that road number.
The road-signs led them through another town which showed the same signs of befalling the fate of everywhere else they had gone through. The difference here though was the streets were eerily quiet. No zombies or howlers. The total absence of those things made her even more nervous, leaving her with the uncomfortable prospect of finding a bunch of them somewhere up ahead. But as they drove on, she made no sightings.
Once they were through the town, Jenny asked,
“Where do you suppose they all went?”
Both Clive and Matt shrugged their shoulders. They were as stumped as she was.
After the town, Saddleworth Moor was a straight run. Only it wasn’t. For the first time since leaving the outskirts of Lillington, they found a road-block. Whoever had placed it, had used the same concrete monsters they had witnessed before. Jenny summarised it was unlikely to be a coincidence.
“What’s this?” Clive asked, peering out from between the two front seats.
“Another roadblock,” Matt replied, “Just like the one we saw in our town. Someone is deliberately cutting off road access for vehicles.”
“You think it’s the same person?” Clive asked.
“Maybe not the same actual person, but yeah, I’m sure there’s something else going on here.”
Jenny felt better knowing she wasn’t the only one who thought so.
Clive looked perplexed, “But why would they do that?”
“No idea,” Matt replied.
Jenny remembered details on the map,
“We went past some other roads on the way here. I’m sure some of them go around the moor, and would still keep us at a safe distance from Huddersfield.”
Matt grabbed the road atlas and studied it.
“Yes, we could do that,” he agreed.
Raising an eyebrow, Clive said,
“Maybe that’s what your mysterious people want. Block one road so drivers have to take another. I’ve read many fiction books with this kind of situation.”
Jenny and Matt both looked at him. He pursed his lips and nodded, “Classic trap.”
Matt and Jenny both jumped when Sophie rapped on the driver’s side window.
“Mum wants to know what’s happening now,” she told them.
Matt rolled the window down.
“Tell her to back-up so I can turn the van around. We’re deciding a new route.”
“Ok,” she said and vanished back to the car.
Turning in his seat, Matt asked Clive,
“Were you being serious, about a trap, I mean?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
Matt looked at Jenny,
“There wasn’t any trap in Lillington.”
“Unless we got lucky and missed it,” she replied, hating this new uncertainty.
“So what do we do?” Matt asked, “Take the smaller roads or go back towards Huddersfield?”
He turned to look at Clive again,
“What happened in the books?”
“Well,” Clive said, “They either fell into the trap or they managed to work out where it was, because of some relevant information, or they knew their enemy enough to guess what they would do.”
“That’s no help to us,” Matt said.
Clive asked, “What did you do the last time?”
“We used the farm tracks between fields,” Matt said.
“Ok, so we take the smaller roads, go slow, and maybe do the same this time if needed,” Clive said.
“What do you think Jenny?” Matt asked.
“To be honest, I don’t know. My head is spinning with this. What if that’s what they think we’ll do? Wouldn’t most people avoid the bigger towns if they thought a quieter route was safer?”
What about you Clive?” he asked.
Clive screwed up his face and shrugged. Matt sat back in his chair and sighed.
A toss of a coin made the decision. They took the B6107, one of the smaller roads. Matt kept the speed down as they went past rows and rows of fields on either side. For a while, clumps of bare trees obscured the view on the right-hand side.
The road was heading into a town. Dread filled her, wondering what they would find there. When they arrived, they found it wasn’t deserted. Tension filled the vehicle as the van was assaulted from all directions by small groups of decaying zombies. They pummelled on the van’s bodywork. The noise and smell were atrocious.
Matt drove slowly, ploughing a way through, knocking bodies out of the way, and occasionally running one over. They were lucky the crowd was spread out. Jenny did her best not to look at the faces of the people outside and found herself repeating in her head, Come on, come on. She was terrified the van would break down, or what it was leaving in its wake, would stall the car’s progress. But Maggie kept pace.
Everyone heaved a sigh of relief when they neared the edge of the town and left the dead behind. With the road ahead clear, Matt picked up the pace. When he thought he was a safe distance from the town, he pulled over.
“I better check the front,” he told the passengers and grabbed the screwdriver and gloves from their place by the roadmap. He took a good look around before getting out. Jenny wanted a breath of fresh air, so she joined him. Clive also chose to exit the van and walked back to the car to inspect it for damage.
For the second time, the front grill had gruesome gunk stuck between its slats. Matt gagged.
“I’ll do it this time,” Jenny said.
“No, it’s Ok, I’m getting used to it.”
“Alright, I’ll go and see how the others are doing then.”
The parked car’s grill showed little evidence of their passage through town. The bodywork, however, had a few more dents than before, but overall, the vehicle was okay.
Everyone was standing on the verge, keeping an eye on the countryside and road.
“Everything Ok?” Jenny asked.
“Fine,” Maggie said, not looking her in the eye.
“We’re sorry about earlier,” Sophie said.
“It’s alright, it was a scary situation.”
Maggie surprised Jenny when she said,
“I’m sorry Jenny. I panicked.”
“Thanks, Maggie, but I think Matt was more upset with the situation than I was, so maybe you should tell him too.”
“Yes,” she sighed, “I’ll go and do it now.”
Maggie left to talk to Matt as Sophie asked Jenny,
“You didn’t get hurt at the petrol station did you?”
“No. I had a scare, but that’s all.”
“Good. You know, I think my Mum really is sorry.”
“Well, I wasn’t expecting an apology, so I guess you’re right.”
Sophie smiled, “You’re in the zombie slayer club with me now.�
��
Jenny wasn’t certain she wanted to be any part of that, but she gave Sophie a small smile back.
Jack, Clive, and Sophie, were helping themselves to food and water from the car when Maggie returned. She didn’t appear very happy. Ignoring the others, she came straight to Jenny who was keeping watch.
“He’s not speaking to me,” she said.
“He’s stressed out, give him time.”
Jenny wondered if it might be a good moment to hold out an olive branch, so she asked Maggie,
“Do you think you and I could put our differences behind us? Try to make more of an effort to get along with each other?”
Maggie thought about it for a few seconds and then answered,
“Ok, I’ll try.”
Relieved, Jenny smiled,
“Good, and I’m sorry for being such a diva back at the station.”
Maggie gave a little laugh,
“You weren’t the only one.” She paused, and then, avoiding eye contact again, put her hand in her jacket pocket and drew out a small brown pill bottle. She held it out to Jenny.
“That’s all there is,” she said, staring off down the road.
Jenny accepted the offering and put it in her bag.
“Thank you Maggie,” she quietly said.
“I’m going to get something to eat now,” Maggie said. And went to join the feast.
Back on the road, and passing signposts for the M62, Jenny asked Matt,
“Are we taking the motorway?”
“It's either that or go across the country. I’m worried we’ll find more roadblocks or run out of diesel if we take the long way.”
“Ok, let’s hope we have better luck with this one then.”
“Yeah.”
The map showed Jenny that the motorway would avoid the north of Manchester, but they were heading into a large built-up region. The road spanned between Rochdale and Oldham, and a number of smaller towns flanked the areas even closer to the M62. Jenny kept her finger’s crossed for a smooth passage.
The vehicles joined the motorway at junction 22, north-east of Manchester. They had no trouble getting into the westbound lanes as the slip road was much clearer than the obstructed M1.
Matt still had to weave between abandoned cars, vans and lorries, as well as the dead. They made good progress and soon went by junction 19. According to the signs, the Birch Services were coming up.
As they approached the rest-stop, they began to see much more abandoned vehicles. Not only were some of them parked in the emergency lane, but others were double parked in the slow lane next to them. On the final stretch towards the slip road off the motorway, Jenny noticed that it was choked with nose to tail vehicles. Many had doors wide open, others were also left the same way, but were damaged, and streaked in dried blood and gore.
The Birch services was situated on both sides of the motorway, joined across the carriageways by a pedestrian bridge. Jenny saw the Eastbound exit was in the same state as the entrance on their side.
Driving on, she saw the ground littered with belongings. A phone here, a laptop there, a child’s soft toy, amidst much more. It brought tears to Jenny’s eyes. She didn’t want to imagine what the actual services buildings and car parks looked like. But only a short time later, she caught a glimpse of that nightmare as they passed under the glass covered pedestrian bridge. The glass walkway showed the horror of at least a hundred of the dead milling about in the corridor. Amongst them, she saw flashes of at least two infected running through the crowd. Once past the bridge, Jenny resisted the urge to look back in the wing-mirror.
She was aware of the cars that littered the side of the road as they neared the service’s exit slip road. They lined up all the way to it and obviously some people had tried to use the exit to enter the area as it was blocked too.
“Poor people,” Clive said, “they probably thought they would be safer inside the building. It must have been horrific.”
Just as he finished his statement, going past a parked lorry on the right, the van swerved severely to the left, heading straight for the service station’s abandoned vehicles. Jenny’s seatbelt kept her from being thrown against the passenger door. But Clive wasn’t so lucky and went tumbling in the back.
She shouted out his name, and got a groan in reply, then looking out the window, she saw how close they were to crashing and screamed out Matt’s name.
The van narrowly missed hitting the vehicles when it swerved right. Jenny was sure two of the tyres had left the ground and she braced for impact. But Matt made a correction, and they were going straight again. She was about to ask Matt what he was doing when she saw in his wing-mirror, the huge crowd of dead flowing from the opposite carriageway through a gap in the damaged crash-barrier. If Matt hadn’t swerved, the van would have driven right into them. They were gathering in number on the road behind them.
A split second later, Jenny realised the car was in trouble, she saw it in the wing-mirror, trying to correct from a swerve and failing. It clipped the side of a lorry, travelled a few metres on its right-hand side tyres, then flipped on its roof. It skidded along in a shower of sparks and glass fragments for another twenty metres before it came to a halt.
“No,” Jenny yelled, “Matt! Matt!”
He braked sharply and began reversing the van. They raced back to the car while the dead were lumbering towards it. The van arrived before the zombies, and it had hardly come to a stop before Jenny was jumping out and kneeling down beside the driver’s door to see inside the upside down vehicle.
Maggie and Sophie were hanging by their seatbelts. The airbags were deployed. Sophie was groaning and trying to undo her own belt. Maggie was conscious but seemed dazed, she had a dripping cut on her forehead. Jack looked fine and pressing his seatbelt release, he fell with a clatter onto the car’s ceiling.
Jenny grabbed hold of the driver’s door handle and pulled, it squealed as it opened a few inches. Matt had arrived and got the rear door open. He was pulling Jack out. Jenny braced her foot against the gap between the doors and hauled with all her strength. She only gained another few inches. Not enough to get anyone out. Then, aware of the approaching zombies, she became even more alarmed at hearing screeches and howls.
“Matt,” she yelled, “see if you can get Sophie’s door open.”
Maggie became aware of Jenny’s presence and turning her head, she asked,
“What’s that awful noise?”
“Nothing to worry about,” Jenny said with fake cheeriness, “can you undo your seatbelt Maggie?”
“Er, I don’t know, I’ll try,” she replied.
Meanwhile, Jenny was attempting the door again, only this time Jack appeared at her side, and putting his fingers in the gap between the car and the door top, he pulled with her.
Three things happened at the same time, Maggie undid her seatbelt and fell, Matt extracted Sophie, and the driver’s door flew open. Jenny tumbled to the ground, landing on her backside again. When she looked up, Jack was helping Maggie out of the car. Matt, having sent Sophie on her way to the van, ran to help Jenny up.
She made the mistake of glancing to her left and saw the horde was nearly on them. A shriek rang out nearby. The next thing she knew was being roughly hauled to her feet by Matt. She felt a dead hand grab the back of her coat, but its grip was tenuous. She pulled away, and the thing lost its prize. Running with Matt, they caught up with the limping Maggie and Jack. Matt and her both grabbed hold of an arm each and practically threw the injured couple in the van.
Matt rushed to the driver’s door and held it open,
“C’mon Jenny, get in! C’mon!”
She launched herself onto the driver’s seat and scooted across as Matt got in and slammed the door. He hit the central locking and put the van in gear.
They were moving when a crouched body landed on the bonnet. A middle-aged female wearing a paramedic’s uniform screamed at them through the windscreen. When she started to raise her fist to strike. Matt
put his foot down on the accelerator. The vehicle spurted forward before he slammed on the brakes, throwing the woman backwards into the road. He hit the accelerator again and aimed straight for her. With a couple of bumps over the infected body, the van bounced on its way.
Jenny made her way into the back. Clive was sitting up on the mattress, leaning his head back and dabbing his bloody nose with a tissue. He seemed to have banged his jaw as well, as a large bruise was darkening there.
Jack was alright, although he was massaging his ankle. He’d put his full weight on it to help Jenny with the door and afterwards had tried to support Maggie back to the van. He waved her attention off.
Sophie and Maggie both had cuts on their faces, presumably from when the windscreen shattered. Sophie’s were superficial, but she had a swollen wrist which was badly bruised. Maggie was coherent, the dazed look having left her. The cut on her forehead was still bleeding, so Jenny got out the first aid kit and tended to the wound.
Maggie whispered a thank you when Jenny finished.
With her limited medical care administered and painkillers handed out to those who wanted them, Jenny returned to her seat. She and Matt exchanged a solemn glance, but for the next few miles, a subdued silence reigned.
CHAPTER 18
They stayed on the same road. No one asked Matt to pull over, and he showed no interest in wanting to stop. So they continued on in silence.
At junction 15, the motorway merged with the M61, which ran towards the North West. Matt let the overhead banners direct him to a route toward Lancaster.
The van got past junction 5 before the carriageway became impassable. In the way stood a barrier of mangled burnt-out wreckage, and the lanes were strewn with lumps of melted tarmac. On closer inspection, Jenny thought she could see where an explosion occurred. The result of a fuel or gas tanker blowing up, she thought.
