“Oh please,” Piper said. “Don’t tell me Grandma was blowing Granddaddy off when she turned.”
The boy tried to scramble to his feet and make a break for it, but Piper stood on his ankle, pinning him to the soil. “Ow,” he cried, “You’re hurting me.”
Grandma dropped to her knees, crawled towards her terrified grandson and grabbed hold of his free leg. She lifted the limb, slid his jeans leg up and eyed the smooth flesh of his calf, like a chef surveying a prime cut of beef.
“Do you want to stay with your grandparents?” Piper said. “I believe that’s the normal protocol if your parents have died.”
“Help me, mister, please,” he begged.
“Oh, so you want to stay with me now?”
“Yes, please, help me.”
“Only if you promise to behave,” Piper said, “and don’t expect any pocket money.”
Piper stepped off the boy and fired a shot into the top of grandma’s head just as she was lowering it to take a bite of his leg. She fell forward and landed on top of him, he screamed and wriggled his legs out from under her. He shuffled away from her on his backside until his back pressed up against the house wall.
Granddad was oblivious to the fact that his wife of forty-six years had just been headshot and staggered towards the boy. Piper let him pass and shot him in the back of the head. He collapsed on top of his wife, less than a meter from his grandson. The boy covered his eyes and started screaming again. He stopped when he received a hard slap on the top of his head.
“What have I told you?” Piper said. “No more fucking screaming. Do you know how hard it is to get headache tablets nowadays?” He kicked the boy in the ribs. “Get up and get in the van and don’t make a single sound or you’ll finish up like the rest of your fucking family: fertiliser for the roses.”
Summer watched the boy approach with his shoulders slumped, using every bit of self-control he had to stop himself from crying.
When they reached the van, Piper said, “What’s your name, kid?”
“Simon,” replied the distraught child.
“Well don’t just stand on ceremony, Simple Simon, get in the fucking van.”
He stepped into the back of the van without so much as a glance at Summer. Piper winked at her and closed the door.
As soon as the van was in motion, the boy burst into tears and scrambled across the van into Summer’s arms. “Hush now, little man,” she whispered in the dark. “Everything’s going to be alright. My dad’s on his way, and he’s going to save us both.”
She hoped she was right. When she had given her dad that farewell cuddle, she had felt the hard coating of his bulletproof vest beneath his clothes, but she didn’t know if it was tough enough to have saved his life from the shooting. All she could do was hope, without hope she had nothing. She gently patted the heel of her trainers that housed the tracking device. “Come for me please, Daddy,” she said. “I need a daddy hug.” She gently kissed the top of Simon’s head. “We both do.”
5: Fill and Kill
As Danny drove out of town, the crowds of zombies gradually thinned out until he only saw the occasional twitcher staggering by the roadside. Their craving for flesh drew them to what used to be densely populated areas, so the further away from suburbia he travelled, the less of them he saw. Nevertheless, he remained vigilant as he passed the cars at the side of the dual carriageway, some of them upside down, others halfway through barriers. He assumed the drivers of the abandoned vehicles had died in them and risen again, but he didn’t know if they were still around.
He spotted a sign advertising services to be a third of a mile away and glanced down at the fuel gauge, the needle pointed to just below the quarter mark. He had some jerry cans filled with petrol in the boot, but it wouldn’t do any harm to fill the tank up. That’s if the garage hadn’t already been cleaned out, looting seemed to be the number one priority for survivors. He indicated left as the exit road approached and laughed at his courteous driving habits. His car was the only moving vehicle on the road, never had indicating been so unnecessary.
The fuel station was in the centre of a forecourt in front of a large, almost empty car park. Behind that was an unlit row of shops and Danny couldn’t help wondering what lurked behind the darkened windows. He patted his holster as he got out of the car just to make sure the Glock was in it.
“He’s here,” Jimmy said, as he came running into Aaron’s office.
“I know, stupid,” Aaron said. “I’m watching him on camera.”
Jimmy stared down at his hands and sucked in his cheeks, making his gaunt face look almost skeletal. He scratched his knuckles, nervously, something he always did on the many occasions he embarrassed himself. “Are we going to get him, Aaron?”
“We sure are, Jim-lad,” he said. “Go tell everybody to meet me by the bus, immediately.”
“Everybody?” Jimmy said. “All fifty of us?”
“That’s right,” Aaron said. “This one’s a cop.” He pointed at the CCTV monitor, and Jimmy leant in close to see the police markings on the car. “We don’t want to take any chances.”
“Yes, sir,” Jimmy said and left the room smiling.
Nowadays, life was dull, but robbing passing travellers gave him a buzz far more intense than any he’d had stealing from his former employer. He thought of himself as a dashing highwayman but looked more like a desert island castaway. Since the phone accessories shop where he worked shut down, he felt there was no need for shaving. There was no longer any public to scrutinise his appearance.
Aaron was a selfish, fat man, who had once been the manager of McDonald’s. He had lived on what they served and ballooned in size until he looked like he was carrying triplets. He still had a bad case of acne even though he was in his late twenties and his long dark brown hair, pulled back in a ponytail, was as greasy as the food he used to gorge.
He and a handful of shopkeepers, along with their families, had decided to stay at the service station after the world had changed, finding security in their isolated location and safety in numbers. He had appointed himself as their leader and rationed out the food amongst his community albeit somewhat unfairly by allocating himself larger portions. He also helped himself to the communal supplies on an evening when he was alone. Everybody in their small society was too afraid of Aaron to challenge him, so he did what he liked.
As a result of his terrible managerial skills, McDonald’s had quickly run out of burgers; Costa had run out of coffee, and Aaron had run out of ideas. It was only by accident that the idea of robbing passing motorists occurred to him when one night, a Ford Focus with a flat tyre juddered across the car park and stopped outside his shop. A middle-aged woman got out of the vehicle and ran inside McDonald’s, Aaron watched her on CCTV from his office upstairs and went down to the restaurant when she started shouting for help.
He told her not to make so much noise; it could draw unwanted attention, and the woman apologised and asked if he could help her change her tyre, as she wasn’t strong enough to loosen the wheel nuts. He agreed to her appeal and followed her outside to her vehicle. When she opened the boot, Aaron couldn’t believe his eyes. Tinned goods, biscuits, Pot Noodles and bottled water, filled every square inch of storage space. She apologised for having to empty the boot to reach the spare, but Aaron fobbed off her apologies and helped her unload.
When the boot was empty, he peeled back the rubber matting and removed the spare. Underneath this was the wheel-brace, an inch-thick L-shaped piece of steel with a fifty-millimetre socket welded to the short end. Aaron picked it up and tapped the socket against his palm. It was surprisingly heavy.
The lady motorist was leaning inside her car, stacking the bags of groceries on the back seat and she popped her head out when Aaron walked around from the boot. “Thank you once again, young man,” she said. “You’re very kind.”
“Not at all, madam,” Aaron said and whacked her on the top of her head with the socket end of the wheel brace.
She fell backwards and slid down the inside of the open door. Aaron picked her up by her shirt front and threw her to one side so he could reach the booty inside. He was giggling away to himself at discovering a bag of jelly babies when he heard groaning coming from behind him. He turned his head expecting to see a zombie, but the noise had come from the woman. She was slowly crawling away from him on all fours. A four-inch gash on top of her head oozed blood, and it dripped from her hair onto the backs of her hands with a soft pitter-patter.
Aaron walked over to her and struck her on the back of her head with the makeshift weapon. Her arms folded underneath her and her face slammed onto the tarmac. He was pretty sure she was dead this time, but just to be sure, he delivered another three good hard blows. When he looked up, puffing and panting, he saw half the members of the community watching him with disgust. “I had to do it,” Aaron said. “She came here to take our fuel, and all I asked for was a bit of her food in return, but she laughed in my face. She laughed in all our faces. She said she’d let other people know about our fuel reserves and tell them it was free for the taking. Are we going to let that happen?”
There was a resounding no from the crowd.
“Damn right we won’t,” Aaron said. “From now, it’ll be us who take what we want from the travellers who’ve come to rob us and if that means we have to kill them, then so be it.”
The spinning reels of the petrol pump read fifty-six-pounds-and-seventy-eight-pence when the flow was shut off by the rising fuel level. Danny placed the nozzle in the cradle and was about to get back in his car when he saw five minibuses speeding across the deserted car park towards him. He reached inside his vehicle, turned on the flashing blue lights and stood by the boot as he watched them approach. He knew he had just taken a liberty; these guys maintained the generator which powered the pumps after all, but he still saw himself as a policeman with a policeman’s rights.
As the vehicles neared, he saw they were crew-buses with windows in the back, and through the glass, he could see they were full of people. Danny waved an arm over his head, an attempt at a friendly greeting.
The buses stopped side by side at the other end of the fuel pumps, twenty meters from where Danny stood. The doors opened, and the male occupants poured out and assembled in front of the convoy. A dozen women remained in the backs of two of the buses, watching bug-eyed with their faces pressed against the glass. The men were all armed with sports equipment: golf clubs, hockey sticks, snooker cues, even tennis rackets and Danny couldn’t decide if they wanted to fight him or challenge him to a game. On a more serious note, Danny counted four guns, and they were SA80 assault rifles. The type used by army personnel.
A fat man with a pony-tail waddled in front of the group with a rifle slung across his back, like an archer would carry his longbow. A scrawny man with an unkempt beard scurried to his side, the point of the dagger tucked through his belt almost touched his knee. “I see you’ve just filled up with our fuel,” the fat man said. “How do you intend to pay for it?”
Scrawny chuckled and drew the large knife.
“As an officer of the law, I have the authority to use any means available to carry out my duties,” Danny said. “And I have taken all I need from here. Let me pass, and they will be no trouble.”
“How much trouble is one man going to give the fifty of us?” Scrawny said. “And there is no police force anymore, so there’ll be no back-up. You’re on your own, officer, and the odds aren’t great.”
He ran forward and threw his knife at Danny. Both his aim and technique were inept, and the side of the blade clanged against the police car’s rear bumper, a meter to Danny’s left.
Danny drew his pistol and shot Scrawny between the eyes. He dropped to the ground mid-stride, dead before he hit the Tarmac. The fat man behind him looked horrified and tried to unsling the rifle, but couldn’t get it over his head. He gave up trying and ran for a minibus, but Danny shot him twice in the back. Fatty threw his arms up, tripped over his feet and crashed to the ground, revealing a gunman behind him. The gun-bearer was struggling with the safety catch, and Danny shot him in the chest before he could figure it out. He fell backwards against a minibus and slid down the grill, still holding the weapon.
A man to Danny’s right ran out of the crowd screaming something incoherent, firing a spray of bullets into the ground. Danny shot him in the face before the lunatic hit the underground storage tanks and blew the whole place up. His charge and battle cry stopped simultaneously, his legs folded, and he fell on top of his machine gun. The last of the gunmen stepped forward, threw his weapon on the floor and put his hands up.
“Wise move,” Danny said. “Now get out of here.”
The disarmed gunman ran for it and still had his hands in the air when he was halfway across the car park. The rest of the mob held their ground and began inching forward, slow but menacing. Angry men gripped makeshift weapons and glared as they edged closer to Danny, the courage of the mob overruling the cowardice of the individual.
“Stay where you are,” Danny said. “I don’t want to kill anybody else.”
“You can’t kill all of us,” said an anonymous voice in the crowd. “Get him.”
The gang charged, dividing into four rows so they could fit between the petrol pumps, shouting and bawling as they came. Danny popped the catch on the boot, reached inside and pulled out a Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine gun. He flicked off the safety catch and fired a three-second burst into the oncoming mob. At thirteen rounds per second, the powerful weapon dropped the first row in an instant. The spray hit half of the second row, and when they fell, the bullets caught some of those in the third.
Confusion and panic replaced assurance as the disorganised mass fell over its dead or dying members. Those that remained standing at the rear turned and fled, dropping their weapons as they ran. The ground resembled a sports stall at a car boot sale. Survivors on the floor untangled themselves from the melee and ran after the others, trampling their forgotten weapons. Some limped away, using each other as a crutch.
Danny stepped forward amongst the fallen and fired a spray of bullets into the air. “Everybody, stop,” he yelled. “Stay where you are and put your hands on your heads.”
The fleeing throng came to an instant halt and hands were raised.
“Now, everybody, turn around and face me.”
The crowd turned as one with looks of terror on their faces. Something tugged at Danny’s trouser leg, and he looked down into the face of a dying man. The man tried to speak, but all that came out of his mouth was a trickle of blood. He got onto his knees, and his intestines spilt out of a gash in his stomach. Danny fired the MP5, ending his suffering.
“Okay, people, listen up,” he said. “You are all free to go about your business, but there are a couple of clauses. Number one: I want to know about the guy who passed through here before me. He has a Harlequin figure on his van. I want to know why you let him pass and where he might be going.”
He watched the crowd for a reaction. Most of them stared at the floor, but some glanced at a curly-haired man, who looked about furtively. “You, Curly, speak up.” Danny aimed his weapon at the singled-out guy who was visibly shaking. “Let me remind you that I’m a police officer and I’ll know if you’re lying. If you are, you’ll be the next person to die on this forecourt.”
“His name’s Piper,” Curly said, once he’d got control of his shakes. “He picks up kids for the Preacher.”
“Who is this Preacher? And what does he do with the kids?” Danny said.
“He’s some self-styled messiah, holed up in a place about twenty miles south of here. He has a small army working for him, crackpots who think he’s going to save the world and their souls with it. They’re all bonkers if you ask me, but they’re loyal, and they’ll do anything for him, so he pretty much does what he wants. And as to why he wants the kids, I don’t know. My guess is he’s fucking them.”
A shiver ran down Danny’s spine.
That was his guess too, but he didn’t want to think about it. If that was the case, he had to get Summer back before she suffered at the hands of this monster. He had already wasted too much time on these petty crooks.
“Okay, here’s clause number two: don’t be robbing any more passing travellers. People have enough problems nowadays without having to deal with vermin like you.” Danny eyed the mob, not one of them could meet his gaze. They all looked at the floor, ashamed of what they’d become. “We are the last survivors of our race and the only way we can go on is if we learn to help each other.
“Which one of you said that I couldn't kill all of you?”
“That was Gerald,” Curly said. “You killed him. He was in the front row when you opened fire.”
“That was his bad luck,” Danny said. “But I could have killed you all quite easily, and I will come back and do just that if I find out that you pitiful excuses for men have robbed anybody else.
“And finally, if you are going to try and survive as a group you need to learn how to use the weapons you have properly. And for Christ’s sake, get some target practice. You guys can’t shoot for shit.”
A crackling sound came from amongst the pile of bodies, a sound familiar to Danny: radio static. He went over to the fat man he’d shot in the back and yanked a walkie-talkie from a clip on the dead man’s belt. “Did you get him, Aaron?” said a familiar voice through the speaker. “Did you get the cop, bro’?”
Danny pressed the button on the side of the radio. “You’re as dead as your fucking brother is, you slimy piece of shit. Nobody sells me out and gets away with it. When I’ve finished my business, I’m going to come back and put a bullet in your head. Do you hear me, Garth?”
Radio silence from the other end told Danny that Garth didn’t want to talk anymore.
“You lot,” Danny said, glaring at the cowering mob, “get out of my fucking sight. You make me sick.”
Searching For Summer: A Zombie Novel Page 4
