When There's No More room In Hell: A Zombie Novel

by Luke Duffy

  Steve eyed the throng of bodies in front of them. “Shit, we could find ourselves in real trouble here fellas if we don’t find a way of keeping them back from the gate, even the road if possible.”

  Gary was at his side. “There's more of them every day.”

  They moved back into the trees and headed to the far end of the park where the wall ran close to the road that accessed the area. They stopped in front of it and looked up and along its length. It was eight feet high and made from solid sandstone. All along the perimeter wall, large fir trees grew at regular intervals on both sides of the stone, their long branches hanging over the wall’s edge and sheltering the inside from view. The wall had stood for a couple of hundred years, from the time before the land within had become a Safari Park and when it was the land of a rich Lord who had encompassed his estate with the tall barrier.

  Lee scaled the wall and peered over the edge for a moment before climbing back down. He wiped his hands together to clear them of the small pieces of grit that crumbled away from the stone and the moss that had grown at the top.

  “Well, you want the good news or the bad news?” he asked.

  Steve shrugged, “You may as well give us both Lee.”

  He nodded. “Okay, well I don’t think the walls will be a problem. It’s about two feet lower on the other side, so unless they learn how to use a ladder, they have ten feet to climb. Don't think even I could manage that easily, never mind them things.”

  Gary spoke, “Well, that's the good news. What's the bad?”

  Lee looked up from dusting the knees of his jeans. “Um, there's fucking loads more on their way.”

  Gary and Steve swapped glances and then looked at the wall. Steve began scrambling up it to get a look for himself. The road was just a few metres from the wall, separated from it by a narrow grass verge. The road spanned twenty metres to the other side where it then crossed onto the path of another, more modern brick wall running parallel to it along the access road. The junction was to his left and at the tip of the road. It was the main entry point for the access road to the Safari Park and it was wide open to anyone that walked along it.

  Shambling bodies approached. A few were just metres away from him as he watched them travel from the direction of the crossroads and onto the access road. They didn't see him as he peered over the wall in the shade of the large trees and he counted at least twenty of them while he watched through the branches, spread out and all headed in the same direction, toward the gate.

  Some shuffled and staggered on unsteady legs, others walked slowly but with more coordination. A few seemed to struggle to stay upright at all. With each step, their bodies lurched and their dangling arms swayed with them, giving Steve the impression that their hips were mounted on some kind of seesaw. Most of them still looked relatively fresh, apart from their colour and gait. But others couldn't be mistaken for anything other than what they were. Green, sagging, rotted skin hung from their bodies, grotesque wounds betrayed their deaths. Some were missing limbs or trailed fetid intestines along the ground in their wake as they lumbered forward.

  He dropped back down to Gary and Lee with a deeply concerned look on his face. “I think we’re gonna have to take a more serious look at blocking off this road boys.”

  Back at the mansion, people gathered around to discuss and give ideas. After hours of consideration and deliberating their alternatives, Gary came up with the best suggestion.

  “Well,” he began, “as far as I can tell, the dead at the gate are all coming from the junction up here.” He pointed his finger to the diagram that had been drawn on a piece of paper and everyone murmured their agreement.

  “If we can find a way of blocking off the road, then I think they will stop coming. I'm not talking about building a wall or anything particularly heavy or formidable. I'm thinking more along the lines of breaking up their line of travel and what they see in front of them.”

  A few confused faces looked up from the group and glanced to each other before asking what was meant by ‘breaking up their line of travel’.

  “Think about it. These things don’t seem to be too bright to me and from what I've seen they will walk forever in a straight line unless something makes them veer off in a different direction. Like the road for instance; it’s unending really because one road leads into another across the whole country.

  “They tend to be bordered with footpaths or guard rails that act as guides and they all look the same if you're staring straight down. So the dead are channelled really and will carry on walking in a straight line, until something attracts their attention or the road stops. If we could just find a way of obscuring the road ahead of them at the junction, hopefully they will just turn left or right and continue following the black tarmac away from the area.”

  Helen raised her eyebrows and looked at Gary. “Okay then, I see what you're saying, but how do we obscure the road?”

  Gary shrugged, “Dunno, the idea has only just occurred to me, I haven’t thought that far ahead to be honest.”

  “Trees,” Jake had been quiet through most of the discussion but he had picked up on Gary’s concept immediately and came up with a solution, “we cut down some of the tall trees on the other side of the wall close to the road and lay them across the carriageway as close to the junction as possible. That should be barrier enough for them, and with their branches, the access road should be obscured enough for it to work.”

  It was agreed they would use the trees to block the road and now they needed to come up with a plan of action.

  There would be three groups. One group would fell the trees while another stood as their protection, and the third group would keep the infected occupied down by the gate to stop them from approaching the people on the outside as they chopped the trees down.

  “I've never chopped a tree down before,” Lee announced to the group. “Not that I'm a tree hugger or work for Greenpeace or anything, just never found reason to.”

  Steve turned around from the planning board that they had erected showing the positions and job labels of who would be doing what.

  “Yeah, me neither. There's a knack to it isn’t there, to get it to fall where you want it to?”

  “I’ll take care of the trees,” John, a burly man, stepped forward from the back of the room. “I think I could get them to fall right, you just keep them rotting shits back while I do it.”

  John had been a great help over the past few weeks with his handyman skills and his knowledge of a wide range of practical subjects. He proclaimed himself to be a ‘jack of all trades, but master of none’ and he was able to put his hands to almost anything, from mechanics and electrics to carpentry and building.

  Gary turned to him. “Have you cut down trees before John?”

  He nodded. “Once, yeah. I stormed into my neighbour’s garden with an axe and chopped his tree down. He was pissing me off with it because it blocked the sun from reaching my garden and he wouldn't trim it.”

  Gary looked at Steve questioningly, then back to John. “And did it fall how you intended?”

  “Not exactly, no. I wanted it to smash into his greenhouse, but it fell the other way and landed on his conservatory instead. All I’ll do now is go for the opposite approach and hopefully, they'll land exactly where you want them.”

  Gary still didn't look convinced and seemed troubled by John’s experience.

  John sighed. “Look, you may not be too impressed with my axmen experience and my reasons for it, but none of you have chopped a tree down and I have, so really, that makes me the expert of the group.”

  Gary, still looking troubled, glanced around the room, but without an alternative it was decided that John would be their resident lumberjack.

  Every tool that could be used was gathered together. A number of axes and saws were dished out to the tree felling team and the protection lot were armed and clothed as best they could be for the job. They wore multi layers of thick clothing and gloves; mainly denim and leat
her, despite the warmth of the day. Soon everyone was headed to their positions along with two sets of ladders to scale the wall.

  Jake, Stephanie and Jennifer were the gate team. They were armed with a radio and headed off through the wooded road that would bring them out at the main entrance. They were to approach the gate at a safe distance and keep the attention of the mass of bodies focused on them.

  John, Gary and Jason set out to cut the trees.

  “Okay, Jason, time to earn your keep,” Gary told him.

  Jason looked anything but eager to be part of the job, but he knew he had no choice.

  Steve, Helen, Lee, Sophie and Carl would be the protection group for the tree cutters. Carl had volunteered against his wife’s wishes and had ignored her protests all the way out the building as she followed him down the path, pleading with him not to go.

  “I have to darling. I can’t just let them go on their own can I? And if I can help, then I should. You know we all have to help out around here.”

  Down at the wall, Steve keyed the radio. “Okay Jake, we’re up at the far end on the other side from the junction. How we looking?”

  “Uh, well they're all pretty riled up down here, and I think we have their complete attention, Steve.”

  “Good, keep it that way.” Steve clipped the radio back onto his belt and turned to his group. “Okay, the moment of truth.”

  He took the first set of ladders from Carl and placed them at the wall. He climbed them and looked out into the road and then at the junction. There were bodies in the area but they were spread out and he judged that, if they were quiet and could remain unseen until the last second before everyone sprung into action, then they could very well get away with it.

  He signalled for Carl to pass up the second ladder, and straining under the weight of them, he hefted them up and over the stone wall, careful not to allow them to bang against it. He eased them down to the ground and pushed and gently pulled them, ensuring they were secure and unlikely to topple or slip.

  He looked back down to the others and gave the thumbs up. “Okay, first group up. Once Sophie is over,” he pointed to Gary and his team, “you three get over behind us.”

  Everybody nodded.

  Steve swallowed hard, feeling a shiver run down his spine and his gut churn, and then he climbed down onto the opposite side, closely followed by Lee, Carl, Helen and then Sophie. They paused in the shade of the trees as they drew their weapons and readied themselves to step out into the open.

  To their front and slightly left was the turn of the junction and directly across was the opposite pathway and high brick wall. Steve looked up into the trees and estimated that three good sized ones should do the trick.

  His heart was racing and he could feel his legs and arms shaking as nervous beads of sweat coursed down his forehead and the back of his neck. He flexed his hands around the handle of his hand axe and looked around at the faces of the others. They all had the same apprehensive look about them, but at the same time, steadfast and determined.

  Gary, John and Jason began to descend the ladder behind them. Steve watched as each stepped onto the grass verge beneath the trees. He looked at Gary and nodded; the nod was returned and Steve and his group moved forward into the open.

  The nearest body was fifty metres away and moving toward the access road. It saw them as they broke cover and immediately let out a moan and quickened its step as it raised its arms. They had all agreed to allow the infected to come to them, to stand their ground and meet them as they approached to within striking distance.

  Gary and Carl began chopping at the first tree in turns at the base as Jason stood ready with the saw. Once Gary and Carl had cut most of the way through, they would jump to the next tree and Jason would come in and finish off the first one.

  Gary and Carl struck the trunk alternately, the axes cutting away at the bark and then into the softer pulp in the middle. They sweated and grunted as they swung their axes and tried their best to block out the moans of approaching infected, laying their trust in the other team members to protect them.

  The first of the shambling bodies approached Helen. She stepped back as it reached for her and slammed the claw end of the hammer that she wielded into the side of its head, felling it in one blow. She had to step on the side of its neck to wrench the hammer free and she raised it again, dealing it a second blow to be sure.

  Two more approached from the rear, their attention being drawn from the crowd at the gate further along by the commotion of the cutting at the trees. Lee was the closest and he laid into them both, swinging his length of rebar at them and beating their heads to a pulp, leaving their rotting brains and smashed skulls smeared across the road.

  As he turned, puffing and panting with exertion he noticed a car headed in their direction from the opposite side of the junction. He paused and pointed as he shouted, “Someone’s coming, Steve.”

  Steve was hacking away at a motionless body on the ground beneath him with his axe when he heard the shout from Lee. He turned to look at his friend and followed his gaze. A silver people-carrier was racing toward them. He looked up and saw the tree swaying as it began to weaken.

  “Shit!” he shouted. “The tree is gonna fall any second.” He waved to the people-carrier to speed it along toward them in the hope of making it through the junction before it was blocked by the first tree. “Come on, move it!” he shouted.

  The first tree was almost ready to fall and Steve saw the signal from Gary and told his team to pull back a few steps to avoid being crushed as it fell. Jason jumped in with the saw, and to Steve's surprise, he attacked the tree with vigour. He wasn't sure if it was fear that drove the man, or whether he had turned a moral corner, but he was impressed with the way he went at it.

  The car screamed across the junction as a loud creaking emitted from the tree and it began to lurch. The driver kept his foot to the floor and continued in the direction of the gate.

  “There's a car on its way, Jake. Don’t let it in though; we need to be sure none of the infected will get through first.” Steve called over the radio.

  Jason jumped back and looked up for an indication of the direction the tree would fall, and from what he could tell it would land straight across the road, forming the first layer of the barrier. It tumbled perfectly, with a loud screech followed by a crash as it smacked against the ground. It hit the opposite pavement, spanning the whole width of the road.

  Steve glanced back toward the gate and saw that the car was now backing away from the entrance and reversing up the road in the opposite direction, leading the crowd of infected away from them.

  When it was fifty metres away from the gateway, Steve heard Jake’s panicking voice over the radio. “Steve, Steve, Stephanie has opened the gate!”

  He watched in horror as the car shot forward and disappeared as it drove into the shade of the trees that obscured the gate area. The infected turned and followed, chasing it up the entrance path toward the park. He could only hope that the gate was closed in time before they breached it.

  Carl and Sophie had begun working together to deal with the dead that had approached from the rear after the first tree had fallen. The noise and commotion caused by the tree felling team had attracted their attention away from the throng of infected at the gateway.

  They swung both their clubs and bars at the cadavers and screamed obscenities at them as they did so. They ploughed through them and managed to keep the area clear as Gary and John hacked away at the trees.

  “C’mon, Sophie girl, c’mon!” Carl screamed across at her as he charged, swinging into the advancing dead.

  Sophie was calling the dead every name and curse under the sun and screaming with each swing, sounding like a female tennis player. She let out loud sighs and grunts with each swing as she hefted her golf club.

  Helen and Lee were on the opposite side of Gary and John, plugging the gap that still left a small entrance onto the access road from the junction. Gary, John and Jaso
n also shouted encouragement to one another as they cut their way through the second tree.

  The second two trees quickly followed the first. They crashed on top of each other and became an interlocking tangle of thick green branches and tree trunks, six feet high with the greenery stretching higher still.

  More bodies were approaching from behind and Steve, happy with the barrier, gave the word for them to get back inside the walls. He was the last to leave the ground and he raced up the ladder. He made sure he didn't forget to raise it behind him before jumping down on the other side. All of them stood, panting and sweating. Jason was physically sick, leaning against Gary and blowing sighs of relief.

  Steve straightened up and raised the radio to his mouth. “Jake, the barrier is good from what I can tell and we’re all okay. Please tell me the gate is closed?”

  “Yes, Steve, it’s closed, but three of them did manage to get in. Jen and I had to deal with them. That useless bitch, Stephanie, ran back to the house.”

  Steve clenched his jaw muscles and growled. “We’ll deal with her when we get back, where is the car that came in?”

  “It’s here with me. A guy named Tony, a policeman, was driving it.”

  Lee rolled his eyes at Steve. “That's all we need, a fucking copper.”

  He nodded to Lee in agreement. “Okay, Jake, we’ll meet back at the house.”

  He turned to Jason who looked back at him and then down at the ground, ashamed for his wife. “That bitch of a wife of yours has done it now mate. She opened the gate and then ran off.”

  “I’ll fucking kill her,” Lee growled from behind him.

  Steve stormed up the path with the rest closely following. He could feel his anger bubbling over and his blood pressure rocketing. He still hadn't decided what he was going to do about Stephanie; he just wanted to get his hands on her for now.

  She stood in the lobby area, speaking loudly with two others and Steve heard her mention something about her being told to return to the house. She turned and saw Steve and his party storm into the foyer. Her face turned white and her lips quivered.