by David Moody
Richards didn’t know if he agreed. The more he drank, however, the more he realised he didn’t care.
It took just over an hour for the crowd outside to build to such a size that sheer pressure forced them inside. A street level window behind and to the right of Holmes and Richards smashed sending a thousand shards of glass and a hundred bodies spilling into the pub. Already too drunk to react or fight, the two men sat in their chairs and continued to drink as the building filled with rotting flesh.
47
Almost five o’clock. The clattering of heavy rain against the roof of the motorhome woke Michael who had fallen asleep a few minutes earlier, still lying next to Emma on the cold, hard floor.
The sound of the rain was deafening. He allowed himself to cautiously roll over and peer out from underneath the blanket which had covered them both since they’d been forced to try and disappear from view many hours earlier. The light was low and he slowly climbed to his feet. His bones ached painfully as he stood upright. The water running down the windows blurred his view of the outside world. The sudden lack of visibility combined with the unexpected but welcome noise gave him enough cover to be able to risk moving around. He quickly worked his way around the sides of the motorhome, blocking each window with heavy curtains and boards. Also awake, Emma sat up and watched him in silence. When he’d finished she too crawled out of the shadows and stood next to him.
‘This is a real fucking mess,’ he said under his breath as he peered out through a narrow crack between the curtains at the nearest window. ‘There are thousands of bodies here.’
He slowly walked the length of the motorhome and sat down in the driver’s seat. Emma remained close behind. She crouched down next to him and grabbed hold of his hand.
‘So what do you want to do?’ she asked.
‘Don’t
know.’
Michael gingerly lifted up another curtain edge and stared outside. All that he could see were corpses. Soaked by the heavy rain and tightly packed together, they were crammed into the field, surrounding the motorhome on every side.
‘We have to do something.’
‘We’ve got to be right on top of the base,’ he said. ‘There must be an entrance round here somewhere. These bodies wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t something attracting them.
We’re out in the middle of nowhere, for Christ’s sake.’
‘So what do you suggest?’
Michael didn’t answer immediately. His attention had been caught by a group of bodies about a hundred meters away. For no apparent reason they seemed to be fighting, almost ripping each other apart. An unstoppable reaction to the sudden outburst of movement and violence quickly spread through much of the rest of the gathering.
‘All we can do is wait,’ he replied. ‘We either wait for the soldiers to appear again and try and get their attention or we wait until this crowd starts to thin out and try and get away from here.’
‘When’s that likely to happen?’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘No idea. Sometime in the next six months I should think.’
She didn’t appreciate his answer.
‘Be serious,’ she sighed. ‘We can’t just sit here indefinitely, can we?’
He shrugged his shoulders again.
‘If we can’t get out of here then we don’t seem to have much choice.’
48
Cooper wished that he’d thought to try and set up some kind of communication system between the van and the two prison trucks. Even a couple of basic two way radios would have been sufficient. As if the effort of driving through the devastated remains of the country wasn’t enough, he was also having to contend with appalling weather conditions and keep his speed slow enough so that he didn’t lose the two trucks which laboured slowly after the van. It wasn’t going to be easy to find the base again. He knew the general route but the morning light was low and everything seemed to have changed since he’d last driven there. The world around him had continued to rot, crumble and decay rendering it frequently unrecognisable. Relentless heavy rain added to the confusion.
The huge, dark shadows of the city which had surrounded them constantly for weeks were now nothing more than distant specks on the murky horizon behind them. The convoy of vehicles made slow progress away from the dead town and deeper into the countryside. Cooper drove along the hard shoulder of a macabre motorway scene. The lanes of the wide road were strewn with the tightly packed wrecks of thousands of crashed cars. Once one of the busiest stretches of motorway in the country, the road was now a bizarre sight - a frozen, rusting, rotting traffic jam.
Cooper rubbed his eyes and massaged his temples.
Concerned, Donna leant forward to speak to him.
‘You all right?’ she asked.
‘Fine,’ he snapped as he steered around the remains of a car which had smashed into the back of another, leaving its boot sticking out in his path. He glanced up into the rear view mirror and watched as Steve Armitage ploughed the larger truck into the car, sending it flipping up into the air and spiralling down onto the top of other vehicles, crushing the bodies still trapped helplessly inside.
The underground base was located some thirty miles outside the city and they had already travelled almost two thirds of the distance. Although increasingly unsure of its precise location, Cooper did remember the names of the villages nearby and was fairly confident of finding his way there again. The complex was buried in a remote and inconspicuous area of land. By its very nature it was always going to be difficult to find.
The sound of a truck’s horn cut through the otherwise still morning air. Donna turned and peered through the back window of the van. A short distance behind them Steve Armitage had slowed down and was flashing his lights furiously.
‘Shit,’ Cooper cursed, slamming on the brakes and bringing the van to a sudden stop.
‘What is it?’ Jack Baxter asked anxiously.
‘Don’t know,’ Cooper replied. ‘Can’t see the other truck.’
Baxter opened the door and jumped out of the van and ran back down the road towards the first truck. He climbed up onto the driver’s footplate. Armitage wound the window down to speak to him.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, wiping spitting rain from his face.
Armitage gestured over his shoulder.
‘They’re stuck,’ he said simply. ‘I think I clipped the side of a car and dragged it out into his way.’
Baxter peered further down the road. Armitage was right. The back of the truck had become entangled with the wreck of a car and had somehow tugged it out across the narrow stretch of road which the convoy had been moving along. Cooper suddenly appeared at his side.
‘Too much noise. Kill the engine,’ he said to Armitage who quickly did as he was told. The soldier silently surveyed the scene. ‘He’ll have to smash his way through. There’s no other way of getting through and we can’t afford to leave either of the trucks behind. We’re tight enough on space as it is.’
Armitage nodded.
‘This lot are beginning to suffer,’ he said quietly, nodding his head towards the back of the truck. The vehicle hadn’t been designed to carry as many passengers as it was carrying this morning. The survivors and their belongings were crammed into an uncomfortably tight space.
‘I’ll tell Croft,’ Cooper said. ‘Get back to the van, Jack.’
Baxter wasn’t listening.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he mumbled.
‘What’s the matter?’ Cooper asked.
Baxter didn’t reply. Instead he simply pointed at the vast column of stationary vehicles next to them. Cooper followed the older man’s line of vision and immediately saw what it was that had attracted his attention. Unable to open the doors of their crashed vehicles or even to escape from the confines of their safety belts, every wreck contained at least one body. Whilst some were unmoving, many others were thrashing around in their seats, trapped but trying desperately to get out and reach the
survivors standing at the side of the road. At first appearing motionless and still, the longer that Cooper and Baxter stared into the endless line of crashed traffic, the more frantic movement they could see.
‘Bloody hell…’ Baxter muttered.
‘Get moving, Jack,’ Cooper ordered. He pushed Baxter back towards the van while he began to sprint further down the road towards the stranded truck. Even from a distance he could hear its engine straining and groaning as Phil Croft tried desperately to force his way through the blockage. As he ran the soldier gestured for Croft to reverse back down the motorway. He knew that they needed to move quickly. To his right was a steep embankment and beyond that several fields and an out-of-town shopping complex. He could see numerous shadowy bodies making their way away from the dark buildings and advancing across the fields with ominous speed towards the motorway disturbance.
Croft stopped the truck and Cooper shouted to him.
‘Just put your fucking foot down,’ he screamed. ‘You’ve got to try and smash your way through.’
‘I’m sorry, I’m not used to driving anything this big. I don’t know how far I can push it…’
‘Shut up and do it!’ Cooper yelled. ‘Worry about it when it goes wrong, not before.’
The bodies in the field were close. The nearest few were beginning to clamber up the embankment. Noticing that Cooper appeared agitated and distracted by something out of his vision, Croft did as he was told. Ignoring the terrified screams and moans from the back of the truck he moved forward again and accelerated faster and faster. He smashed into the wrecked car which blocked his way, trapping it under his bumper. It dragged and scraped along the road for a few seconds before working its way loose and tumbling down the embankment. Free to move again, Croft edged towards the back of the other truck and waited for Cooper to scramble back to the van at the front of the convoy.
In less than a minute they were moving again.
The stretch of motorway where they had stopped was suddenly swarming with bodies.
49
As grimy-grey daylight gradually crept across another cold, wet and foreboding morning, so Cooper’s orientation and recollection slowly returned. Landmarks and familiar place names helped crystallize his thoughts and reassure him that he was leading the survivors in the right direction. They passed through a lifeless village which he clearly remembered. Empty and dead for more than a month, many of the cottages and homes which lined the main street had been burned to the ground, others were charred and scarred by smoke, dirt and decay.
Sudden movement surrounded the convoy as the noise of their engines caused nearby bodies to emerge from the shadows and surge towards the road. Their reactions still relatively slow, the bulk of the bodies did not appear until the vehicles had passed by. A lone corpse, however, stumbled into the road a short distance ahead of the van. Cooper accelerated and obliterated the creature with a brief moment of effort and no consideration or remorse whatsoever.
Through the village and back out onto an empty and exposed country road which twisted and turned precariously as it worked its way between fields and hills. The narrow road began to climb a steep gradient. Now sure of his surroundings, Cooper turned the steering wheel to the right and sent the van careering down an even narrower track which sloped downwards and which was virtually invisible from the road. With his heart in his mouth Steve Armitage followed, slowly coaxing the cumbersome prison truck down the track whilst, at the same time, taking care not to lose sight of the soldier ahead. Armitage was used to driving trucks. The doctor driving the third vehicle was not. His pulse raced and his hands were moist with nervous sweat.
‘Fucking hell,’ he snapped as his truck began its unsteady descent. The height of the bonnet in front of him mean that he drove the first few feet virtually blind. More through luck than judgement he managed to keep the vehicle on course.
The track straightened out quickly, running below but parallel with the road. Donna sat in the back of the van and wondered just how many hidden routes like this existed. They would never have found this place if they hadn’t had the soldier with them. If he had chosen to stay behind in the city then they’d have been forced to do the same. Whether the others liked it or not, each one of them owed Cooper a debt of gratitude.
A hairpin right quickly followed by another steep descent and then the track suddenly cut across a wide field buried deep within a steep and otherwise inaccessible valley. The shadows of huge protective hills reared up on either side. Donna felt safer already.
‘You never know where these places are until you’ve reached them,’ Cooper yawned as they trundled down the hidden road.
‘So if we’re going to have trouble finding it,’Donna said, leaning forward and peering over the soldier’s shoulder, ‘then this base should be pretty safe.’
‘You’d hope so.’
The track began to climb and then dipped down again, crossing a wide stream at a shallow ford. The three vehicles powered through the water, sending low waves rippling away on either side. Cooper could see the tops of the first few trees ahead.
He knew that they were close now. The sides of the track became steep banks and he increased his speed.
Phil Croft wiped his face and forced himself to concentrate on the uneven road which stretched out in front of him. He was becoming used to the size and handling of the prison truck now, but driving a machine of such power was something which didn’t come naturally to him. The larger truck in front was being driven with obvious skill and precision by Armitage. Under Croft’s guidance the smaller vehicle skidded and slipped across the uneven road surface alarmingly. He could hear murmurs of concern and discontent from the survivors in the back but he ignored them. They’d already had to live through much greater hardships to get this far.
At the front of the convoy Cooper yanked the steering wheel around to the right to follow a sudden and unexpectedly sharp bend in the track. The steep banks on either side had fallen away again leaving a clear view of the narrow roadway as it disappeared into a dark and dense forest of brittle branched trees.
With real concern for the others he looked into his mirrors and watched as Armitage slowed down to a virtual stop and teased the heavy truck around the bend.
More dips, furrows and twists in the track as it began to wind its way through the grey and shadowy forest. There were bodies nearby. Armitage noticed them first from his high vantage point.
They were staggering through the undergrowth, tripping over rocks and half-buried tree roots and then scrambling back up again and lurching towards the unexpected convoy. The truck driver didn’t say anything to the others travelling with him. His vehicle was huge. He knew that these few diseased cadavers posed no threat.
Cooper knew that they had almost reached the base. The last traces of doubt and uncertainty in his mind disappeared as he drove through a narrow gate and over a cattle grid which shook the van and its passengers. As the trees and vegetation around them thinned away to nothing he allowed himself to put his foot down on the accelerator and steam ahead with relieved intent.
The track cut through a relatively featureless field and then quickly climbed towards a slight rise. The base lay on the other side.
‘Must be getting close now,’ Armitage muttered as he followed Cooper out of the forest. Once through the gate he increased his speed to match that of the van just ahead of them.
Reacting to the sudden increase in the speed of the other two vehicles, Phil Croft looked up and panicked. Afraid of losing sight of them (although he knew there was no way that he would) he too slammed his foot down on the accelerator pedal.
The truck began to lurch and sway uncomfortably.
‘Bloody hell,’ Paul Castle moaned from the passenger seat,
‘slow down will you.’
Croft wasn’t listening. He yanked the steering wheel hard to the left, trying desperately to follow the track and get through the gate.
The police van disappeared over the ridge. As
Armitage followed he glanced back in his mirror and watched helplessly as the front wheel of the smaller truck behind him hit a moss-covered boulder and was forced up into the air. The sheer weight of the unbalanced truck tipped it over onto its side and the speed at which it had been travelling caused it to skid along the muddy ground, stopping only when it smashed into the gatepost. The battered machine came to a sudden halt half in and half out of the forest.
Dazed, Croft lay still, slumped forward heavily in his seat, hanging in mid-air and held in position by his safety belt.
Beneath him lay the dead body of Paul Castle who had been thrown out of his seat by the force of the impact. His head had smashed against the windscreen. Oozing blood mixed with shards of broken glass around his lifeless face.
Croft managed to lift his head and open his eyes momentarily. He was aware of movement. As the first few bodies appeared and began to beat against the shattered windscreen he lost consciousness.
50
Exhausted and almost asleep, Michael was slumped forward against the steering wheel of the motorhome. A sudden noise made him jolt upright in his seat, instantly awake.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he cursed as the police van thundered past and tore into the field packed with bodies. ‘Where the fucking hell did that come from?’
Emma ran to his side and watched with surprise and disbelief as the van ripped a bloody path through the mass of wandering corpses. Before she could speak the prison truck appeared.
‘Follow them,’ she gasped, her mouth dry with sudden shock and nerves. With his heart pounding and his hands shaking Michael started the engine and attempted to move the motorhome forwards. All around them bodies were reacting with ominous strength and fury to the sudden melee. Some staggered after the van and the truck, others turned and lurched quickly towards the lumbering bulk of the motorhome. The police van skidded to a halt about a hundred meters ahead, the once white (but now muddy brown and blood-soaked) truck a few meters further on. They watched as a man hung out of the side of the truck and began to gesture furiously to the people in the van. He was waving back in the direction of the incline that they had just powered over. Seconds later the reversing lights on the back of the van were suddenly illuminated and the vehicle sped back towards the motorhome, its engine whining and its wheels churning mud, gore and rotting flesh up into the cold morning air. The driver slammed on the brakes when the two vehicles were parallel. There was a gap of less than a metre between them. He wound down his window and shouted over to Emma.
