Mark could only stare at Chris as the door closed. Both of their faces carved with looks of hatred.
As soon as the door closed, Mark snapped out of his transfixed gaze and realised he had to move. Ishaq was lifting Zack’s body onto his shoulder.
“Ishaq, we have to go. We can’t take him with us.”
“I’m not leaving him.” Ishaq replied without looking at Mark.
Mark put a hand on his chest to stop Ishaq, forcing him to listen. “I’m sorry about all of this, I really am, but we need to get everyone back to the van as quickly as possible. These things are fast.”
Ishaq was blinking quickly in an effort to stop his eyes from tearing up.
Slowly, Ishaq lowered Zack’s body and Mark gave him a moment to gather himself before getting up. When he stood, Ishaq looked furious.
“Let’s go, we’ll deal with this later.”
Mark was reluctant to ask Ishaq what he meant, there wasn’t time to go into a full debate about any kind of retaliation but he knew he didn’t want anyone to retaliate at all.
Luke was still frozen to the spot in shock when Ishaq and Mark caught up to him.
“Is he…?”
“He’s gone Luke. There’s nothing else we can do now.” Mark replied, noting that Luke’s gaze wasn’t leaving Zack’s body. “Luke,”
Luke’s eyes snapped back to Mark.
“How far away are the Scutters?”
“They’re already here.” He said flatly.
Mark and Ishaq followed Luke hurriedly back to the tree line, crouching as they moved. Mark expected to see the rest of the group in battle with a mob of zombies and became worried when he returned to an empty opening.
“Where…”
Mark was instantly cut off by a voice coming from ground level.
“Shhh! Get down and be quiet!”
Helen’s voice was instantly recognisable. Mark scoured the ground around him, looking for the source of the voice. He eventually noticed Cassie and Helen lying on their stomachs, half engrossed in the bushes. Eleanor was sat on one knee, leaning out from behind a tree just ahead and looking through her binoculars into the distance. She held her free hand out behind her an frantically waved it up and down, indicating that they needed to be silent or to crouch down out of view. Mark decided it would be a good idea to do both.
Ishaq and Luke followed Mark’s lead and dropped to a crawl next to him. They crawled on their elbows closer to the bushes and Mark got as close to Helen as he could.
“What are we looking at?” He whispered.
From where they were, he could still see Eleanor who whipped her head round as he spoke and gave him a stern look. Mark knew he had to be quieter and that was confirmed when Helen spoke in a whisper so quiet, he could barely hear it. Considering how loud the ringing in his ears still was, Mark realised he probably hadn’t been whispering as quietly as he thought he had.
“We were on alert after the message from Gaz but I thought I was imagining it at first. The sound, from the store. I couldn’t…” She paused as she looked around. “Where’s Zack? And what the hell was that explosion about?” Helen had been so focused on trying to find the Scutters that it hadn’t even occurred to her that Zack was missing.
Hearing the whispered conversation, Cassie inched closer to Mark.
“Where’s Zack?” She asked, eyes wide with fear.
Mark didn’t know what to say, he thought they would have been watching. His mind raced as he tried to think of the words as diplomatically as he could knowing how emotionally fragile Cassie was at that moment. The hesitation said more than anything he could think of at that moment.
“Oh, God no!” Cassie gasped, louder than anyone had been speaking since the groups met back up.
“He’s dead?” Helen asked.
Mark’s eyes dropped to the floor as he frantically thought of what to say, anything to calm the situation.
“Please tell me he’s not dead?” Cassie was sounding panicked and Mark was worried she was going to start hyperventilating.
Aware of the commotion that was brewing, Luke shifted closer to Cassie in an effort to calm her down. Eleanor dashed over from the tree she had been positioned behind, confused at what all the noise was for?
“What’s going on over here?” Quickly, she noticed Zack was not with the group. “Where’s Zack?”
“He’s dead! Cassie shouted, “They’re all dead.”
Helen joined Luke in trying to calm her, forgetting the awkwardness of earlier and putting her hand around Cassie’s shoulder.
“We have to be quiet.” Eleanor whispered, trying to return rationality to the group. “Mark, have you seen a zombie like this before?”
Eleanor looked at Mark and tilted her head backwards before hurrying back to the other tree, indicating Mark should follow her. They both duck walked over to her previous viewpoint and Eleanor gave him the binoculars.
“Over there.” She pointed to their right and whispered so quietly that Mark could only tell she had spoken by the gentle brush of her breath on his ear.
Mark looked through the binoculars and tried to get his bearings through the magnified view. As he panned the binoculars, he glimpsed a familiar sight and panned back to it.
The unmistakable thorns of a spiked zombie looked twice as deadly as they moved with it. It stalked slowly through the trees, well balanced with its head held high. Its movement was unnerving. Most zombies moved like they were going to fall over at any moment, swaying and shifting their centre of balance uncontrollably. The way their body would move sometimes reminded Mark of liquid, momentum building in one direction and creating bursts of speed.
This zombie looked like a person sleep walking. Slow, definite movements. Arms at its side, never turning its head. The slow movement made it look haunting compared to the normal sporadic nature of zombies.
Despite the unnerving image of the spiked zombie, Mark was mesmerised by the Scutters surrounding it.
Before the world had changed, Mark liked to watch documentaries on TV. What he watched from behind the tree reminded him of seeing elephants in the desert. He had seen herds of elephants walking through the desert with small birds flying round them, feeding off the insects that buzzed around them without the elephants paying any attention to them.
Four Scutters scrambled around the spiked zombie, circling it without ever moving too far away.
The spiked zombie completely disregarded their erratic behaviour. Instead, it continued to stalk through the trees, stopping occasionally but not seemingly to look around.
Each time it stopped, Mark felt his stomach tighten. He remembered Helen telling him about the Screamer and how it tracked movement without making a sound, he hoped that the spiked zombie wasn’t doing anything similar. The speed of the Scutters made the spiked zombie’s movements seem much slower than they probably were.
Mark lowered the binoculars and saw that Eleanor was squinting her eyes, peeking her head out of the other side of the tree as carefully as possible.
He tapped her shoulder and she jumped slightly. He waved his hands in apology and signalled for them to return to the others.
Together they shifted into a crawl and made their way back to the bushes. If anyone had spoken, Mark hadn’t heard them.
“We’ll wait for them to leave and make a break for it back to the van. I know they’re in the opposite direction but I’m not convinced we’d all be able to move silently together.”
“I don’t think they’re leaving.” Said Eleanor. “They’ve been circling us since Luke went to warn you, they might have even heard him leaving the area or you guys coming back.”
“With all these trees, I think we could just make a break for it.” Said Ishaq.
“You saw what the spiked zombie was capable of back at the lab. We’re not prepared to fight another one of those things right now. Not to mention those smaller…”
Mark was cut off by the screeching noise of the smaller zombies. This time, the nois
e came from behind them, closely followed by calls from further away. The group instantly realised they were surrounded and sank as close to the ground as they physically could.
It was hard to judge how close any of the zombies were without breaking cover but Mark didn’t dare risk standing and finding himself feet from one of the spiked zombies. Although he had only seen the one through the binoculars, he felt that the spiked zombies and Scutters shared some kind of symbiotic relationship and where one could be found, the other wouldn’t be far away.
Thinking fast, Mark considered his options. The group were currently caught between an unknown number of special infected and a hostile group of survivors. The only plan he could think of involved both of them.
“We have to lead the zombies to Chris’s base.” Whispered Mark.
“How do we do that?” Asked Ishaq.
“We need to lead them over there with noise without revealing our position. I think I’ve got an idea how that might work.”
Chapter 11
Gaz hadn’t seen any zombies since he’d contacted Mark and the group. He hadn’t seen any then either, only heard the horrible cries in the distance. He sat patiently on top of the van, staying as alert as possible.
“Gaz!”
Jack’s voice snapped Gaz back out of his distraction.
“What is it?” He asked, concerned at how urgent Jack’s voice sounded.
“I’ve just had a message off Mark. He wants us to drive the van down the road to the industrial estate and when we get near the building with the train tracks behind, he…”
The pause indicated Jack was re-reading the instructions. Gaz knew Mark well enough to know that sometimes, his ideas were pretty left-field. He assumed this plan was either going to be stupid or dangerous.
“He wants me to keep the horn blaring and drive into the gates as fast as possible without wrecking the van.”
Gaz grinned. “Then what?”
“He wants us to leave them behind and drive back here to wait for them.” The inflection in Jack’s voice made what he was saying sound more like a question than a statement.
“Excellent.” Gaz proclaimed.
He jumped down from the roof of the van and dropped into the passenger seat, amused by the slightly confused/ slightly horrified look on Jack’s face.
“You heard the man.” He said in an overly upbeat voice. “Let’s drive through that gate with the horn blaring.”
“You think they’ll do it?” Helen asked in a hushed tone.
“If I know Gaz, he’ll be looking forward to it.” A wry smile crept across Mark’s face as he thought about previous precarious situations they had escaped with less than adequately thought out plans.
The group lay silently in the bushes as they waited for the van’s engine to signify the plan was on. After ten minutes, they heard a vehicle approaching. Everyone looked at Mark expectantly.
“Okay, is everyone ready?”
Heads nodded nervously.
“Wait for my signal and then run as fast as possible. Stick to the trees and don’t stop for anything.”
As the vehicle grew closer, the Scutters began to screech excitedly. It was hard to pinpoint movement from so low to the ground but Mark listened as carefully as he could despite the persistent ringing in his ears.
The vehicle sounded close enough to see but the group stayed hidden. Suddenly the engine accelerated, the sound of dirt being spun into the air with it. The acceleration seemed to last a long time before a catastrophic crash. The van made a skidding sound and then fell silent. Mark heard the van turning over, trying to restart and realised it must have stalled following the impact with the gate. The trees erupted with the sound of Scutters, Mark dreaded to think how many were surrounding the group. The chorus was joined by a deep growl that emanated from multiple places, he could only assume that it was the call of the spiked zombies.
The ground vibrated with the impact of feet, surging through the forest towards the sound and Mark felt himself break out in a cold sweat as he tried to imagine how many zombies were charging towards the stalled vehicle in the compound. He began to panic as the realisation settled that his plan to create a distraction had trapped Gaz and Jack between the zombies and survivors, as helpless as Mark and the others had been.
Mark didn’t hear the van restart but he heard the engine accelerating again. This time getting closer and met with a crescendo of screeching. The van began to get quieter again and Mark prayed that Gaz and Jack were okay inside.
Luke looked at him nervously, waiting for the signal to leave but Mark didn’t want to leave cover too soon. They still didn’t have an accurate picture of what they were running through.
A gunshot rang out. Closely followed by another. The staccato noise began to grow and Mark knew that Chris’s group were having to put up a fight against a sizeable mob.
“Now!” He spoke, making sure he was heard by everyone.
Ishaq jumped up first and gave a quick look around to make sure it was safe for everyone else.
“Go, go, go!” He whispered.
Mark squatted in position, wanting to make sure everyone else was on their way to safety before he began running himself. As Eleanor gently placed her hand on Cassie’s back, pushing her to start jogging, he looked in the direction of the compound. He could only see the closest corner but could see movement within. As another gunshot rang out, he saw one of the spiked zombies take a shot to the chest without slowing.
Guilt began to creep in but he tore his head away from the scene before the thought was allowed to evolve. There would be time to think over his decisions later.
The group ran as quickly as they dared, all looking around for any zombies that were heading towards the compound. They stayed clear of the road to allow themselves some cover as they ran.
A sudden rustling sound grew louder and Mark frantically looked for its origin. He panned his head from side to side as quickly as he could, still running as he looked. In front of him, Cassie also heard the noise. As well as looking round, she looked up into the trees. Her eyes widened and she opened her mouth to say something but she was cut off as a body fell on top of her.
Mark tried to dodge the sudden obstruction but his shin collided with the Scutter and it sent him tumbling over the top of it and landing on his back. Before he could get back to his feet, Eleanor had turned around and was heading straight for the creature that had flattened Cassie to the floor.
Eleanor grabbed an arrow from her quiver and drew back the bow while still moving. She slowed and steadied her aim at the creature’s head, waiting to fire without the arrow injuring Cassie who was screaming at the rotting corpse pinning her down.
The Scutter raised its head and screeched at Eleanor, its eyeless face gazing at her. Its face was filled with hate. Not hunger or the emotionless gaze of the regular zombies, hate.
Eleanor released the arrow and it fired through the Scutter’s forehead. It buried itself into the creatures skull with so much power that only the feathers of the arrow could be seen from the front. The head of the arrow and a portion of the gore soaked shaft protruded from the back of its head and the force of the shot made the Scutter’s head thrust backwards.
The creature’s balance was pushed backwards with the snapping of its head and it began to release its grip on Cassie. Eleanor kicked its shoulder as she removed another arrow from her quiver and it crumpled into a mound of limbs next to Cassie.
Eleanor kept her eyes trained on the Scutter as she lined up another shot and quickly fired a second arrow into the Scutter’s skull. The second arrow hit with as much force as the second, this time at a different angle, doubling the trauma caused to the inside of its head. Despite two accurate headshots, Eleanor kept her gaze on the Scutter, unwilling to give it an opportunity to pounce on her if she mistook it for dead. The creature had tried to kill Cassie and Eleanor swore to protect everyone from Ridgetown as best as she could.
Keeping her gaze locked on the creature, El
eanor never saw the second Scutter fall from the trees or the third that pounced from the bushes. The sudden pain in the back of her neck was excruciating. She tried to scream but the air had been knocked out of her lungs. She tried to breathe but the weight of two of the creatures on her was too much. She felt more pain to her back and heard shouting but the voices were distant. Her vision became blurry as she still struggled for a breath. The pain dulled and her temples began to throb. She felt a burning in her throat and stopped trying to move.
Luke, Ishaq and Helen had stopped running as soon as they had heard Cassie scream. As soon as the two other Scutters had emerged from the trees, others had appeared. Instantly, Ishaq and Helen had joined Mark in attacking the closest creatures with their axes, Helen casting her bow aside in favour of her axe.
Luke ran to Cassie who had made it back to her feet but looked unsteady. He held Cassie close to him and attempted to continue in the direction of the van but another Scutter scrambled along the ground in front of them. Cassie’s scream made Helen jerk her head around.
Helen had never heard Cassie scream before and worried how fragile she had become in the past few hours. Luke was kicking his leg out at the Scutter, keeping it temporarily at bay although the Scutter tilted its head from side to side as if amused by what Luke was doing rather than hesitant.
Helen covered the few feet with a sense of urgency and swung her axe hard at the Scutter, narrowly missing it. It jumped backwards with more urgency than it had been showing to Luke and shrieked at them.
“Get back to the van, everyone!” Mark shouted.
Luke looked over to him in time to see Mark barge into the two Scutters standing on top of Eleanor. They stumbled off her body but Eleanor didn’t move. Her head stayed face down into the ground and her greying hair was soiled red with blood. Luke stopped Cassie from turning around, dreading to think what her reaction to the sight would be.
Ridgetown (Book 2): Neighbours Page 19
