by Haywood, RR
Who did? Paula asked.
Whoever did this, I said. I reckon they threw Molotov’s in.
Nipper’s right, Frank said, shoeing a chunk of burnt glass on the ground. He picked it up and sniffed it. Milk bottle filled with petrol.
Someone fought back then? Booker said as I noticed he was staying close to my side.
Yeah. I said and nodded to a body. See. Cut in the neck. And that one got shot in the head by a shotgun.
Spent cartridges, Frank said, picking one up off the ground.
5.56 here, Carmen said as we walked over to see brass shells on the ground near her feet. We followed the trail to a body dressed in black lying dead over the top of a police issue assault rifle surrounded by dozens of spent rounds and a couple of empty mags.
He took a few down, Frank said.
She, Carmen said as we all looked down to see a face so chewed up it was impossible to see gender. But then we clocked the bulges of her breasts and her wider hips as Booker started coughing and turned away.
You okay, bro? I asked.
Yeah. Fly went in my mouth, he said.
Close your mouth then bellend, Blowers said.
This looks recent, Paula then said.
Few hours I’d say, Frank said as Henry and Carmen and a few others nodded and said they agree. Looks like they went that way, Frank added.
I could see he was right. There was a flow going from one side of the area to the other then we all looked through the treeline at the end to a big building set in big playing fields behind it.
Leisure centre, Paula said, seeing a sign telling visitors how to get to it.
They had fences up, Joan then said, looking at the leisure centre through her scope. Windows were boarded but have been ripped out, and it was on fire.
Commune? Howie asked.
Looks that way, Joan said. And there’s a lot of bodies across the fields into this car park.
She lowered the scope to use her naked eye to track from the edge of the car park across the area we were all standing to the direction Frank said the fight went in.
Then we heard the gunshots.
Carmen
An assault rifle then opened up somewhere nearby. It was hard to tell instant distance and specific direction as gunshots bounce and roll off buildings.
We set off north and ran through a small precinct feeling the heat and coughing from the smoke. More bodies marked the route, and we spotted a crawler dragging itself along with flies feasting on the ruined stumps of her legs. A quick shot from Dave put it down.
I heard the Saxon firing up and knew Tappy was going on the road while we went through the narrower alleys.
We got through the shopping area into a residential road and grimaced at the houses all burnt down with some still on fire. The air was filthy and hotter than hell.
Everywhere we saw was the same. Fires and death and destruction. It was like an army had gone through with a scorched earth policy of leaving nothing behind, and the further we got into that town, the worst it got.
‘Horde ahead!’ Tappy said into the radio. ‘They’re by the garage… no, hang on. School! They’re going for a school!’
That did it and we all sped up with a burst of energy. Me and Danny and some of the faster ones striding out.
‘I’ve found the school!’ Charlie transmitted. ‘People inside!’
‘Run, Carmen!’ Henry shouted as I started sprinting with Danny and Mo. I figured Dave could leave me standing if he wanted, but then Dave refused to leave Howie.
We got onto the last road to a row of houses on fire ahead of us, but I could see the top of the school building beyond and figured to go through the gardens as the crow flies.
‘Stay behind me,’ I shouted to Danny and Mo. They were good lads and if it was just infected, we were going into then I would have let them go for it. But it wasn’t. Someone was firing a weapon, which added a greater risk, plus we had to navigate the burning houses.
I went wide around the last one to avoid the wall of heat coming from the flames. The back garden was on fire too, but we dodged and weaved the flaming shed to vault the last fence over into the shrubbery bordering the school building - a long low structure with the sound of gunfire coming from inside with shouts and yells.
Then we saw the Saxon on the entry road. Running the infected down.
‘BREACH! THEY’VE BREACHED!’ Charlie shouted into the radio.
I set off to see her and Jess wading into a thick crowd of infected pouring in through the ripped down boards on a window at the back of the school as the gunfire inside intensified.
‘Help Charlie!’ I told Danny and Mo and went with them as they ran in to attack the horde, diverting some of their attention from the breach point. I stayed low to get through the broken window. Dropping into a bathroom with the flimsy interior stalls already busted down. Blood on the floor and walls and a young man was on his side hugging his belly with fresh bite marks on his arms and legs.
I didn’t hesitate and put a round through his head as more gunfire erupted further within. I went into the corridor. Ducking low and seeing infected with gunshot wounds. Some still alive and crawling. Snapping their jaws at me and reaching out with clawed hands. I fired a few more times. Putting them down and moving as fast as I could.
There was a corner ahead. The walls made of painted concrete blocks. Coat hooks here and there alongside small lockers. A primary school for tiny kids. The desks and chairs inside the classrooms so small and tiny. The brightly coloured storage boxes on the walls. The art on the walls. The low benches and the small paintbrushes in their small cups.
The sight of it spurred me on as I ran along the corridor, leaping crawlers and shooting infected coming at me from open doors. The gunfire still ahead. Deep within the centre of the school. Shouts and yells sounded out. Screams of fear and anguish. Screams of pain.
‘NO!’ A deep male voice yelled. The terror obvious. I ran faster and turned a corner into the back of a horde to see infected ahead battering through a set of doors leading into the main assembly hall. The people inside screaming out. Men and women rushing to brace and try and hold them while a woman in black police clothes fired an assault rifle through the gaps. She got shots into the infected, but she was panicking and getting body shots, which had no real effect.
‘HEAD!’ I yelled out, ducking back from a round whizzing past me. ‘AIM FOR THE HEAD!’
She couldn’t hear me. The noise was too great. The infected were screeching and howling and the people inside were screaming. It was chaos. Pure chaos, and I could see that barricade sliding in as the infected forced the doors open. The people holding it were giving it everything they had. Fighting for their lives and to save the children inside. I was firing as fast as I could, and when my rifle emptied, I slung it and drew my sidearm for CQB and put rounds in. I thought between us we could hold them off until the others arrived. I honestly believed that Frank and Dave would be at my back any second. Howie and Clarence. Blowers and Cookey. Somebody. Anybody.
Then the police officer’s rifle clicked empty, and the look on her face will haunt me forever.
It was like shock and horror and disbelief. That this wasn’t really happening. That this couldn’t be happening. She had nothing left to give. No more magazines. No more bullets.
Then the doors went in and I caught sight of the survivors inside all staring out. Dozens of them. Men and women and children. All of them frozen in that split second forever in my mind as they looked up to see the infected beasts pouring into the hall.
Some of them closed their eyes and held their children. Some of them found last surges of pure wild bravery and rose up to fight, and my god they fought. They fought with nails and teeth, but it was over the second the doors went in.
I went in with them. Fighting and shooting and screaming out with this great well of fear and rage inside. Not for my own safety, but fear of what I was about to witness.
Every second of that attack is now score
d into my head. The way a big male lunged into a woman shielding her two children and bit into her face while she screamed and other infected went for her kids.
I reacted without realising and killed the kids. I did that. I ran towards them and got rounds into their heads while the infected pounced. Then I turned and shot a man pinned down with infected ripping his intestines out. Then a woman beating at an old lady biting into her arms. It was just me. In the middle. Turning and firing. Turning and firing. I don’t know how many rounds I put in, or how many people I killed. I know I changed magazine in my pistol more than twice because of having to replace them later. But right then. It was a fucking blur of murder and blood and fear.
Then I felt this impact from behind and was lifted off my feet and thrown into the tables set up to hold the rations the people were using. I went down hard but managed to turn and see a big female infected screeching as she ran at me. Her chin coated in blood. More infected at her back and sides. All of them now fixed on me. I fired fast. Getting rounds into heads and dropping them but more joined in.
I got up and fired as I retreated then my pistol clicked empty. I had no time to change it and grabbed a chair to throw at them. Then another and another as they came in fast. Sweeping me backwards. I drew my knife and got one through the neck as I was taken off my feet and rammed into a wall.
I felt teeth on my right bicep and left forearm while nails raked down my neck. Teeth came for my face. I bucked and heaved and headbutted and bit someone’s nose off and spat it away while wishing I’d kept one round in my pistol to shoot myself with because in my mind it was over.
They were pressing into my neck. I couldn’t breathe. I was started to black out. Then a gnarly old bastard called Frank McGill was in amongst them. Slicing throats and snapping necks. Stamping on knees. Cutting arteries. Frank McGill. The man that saved me from the Russians. The man that had watched over me ever since.
Frank McGill. The most dangerous man I ever met other than Dave.
The infected didn’t know what hit them. Frank took them all out until he finally grabbed the big female by of her hair and stabbed his blade into her neck as he twisted to throw her over his hip.
I dropped. Unable to hold my own weight but Frank caught me on the way down.
‘I gotchu. Just breathe.’
I was coughing and retching. Clawing for air. He pushed my hands down and looked at me.
‘I said breathe.’
His voice slowed the panic. I started to breathe and ease my terror. He nodded. Seeing the sense coming back into my eyes.
‘I fucking killed them,’ I tried to tell him. ‘The kids. I fucking killed them.’
He just looked at me through eyes that have seen more war than anyone else alive, and all he could do was swallow and nod.
‘We’re going to find who started this, Frank. And we’re going to kill them.’
‘Love.’
‘Listen to me! I said we’re going to find them,’ I spoke through gritted teeth. On my backside on the bloodied and corpse covered assembly hall of a primary school, and I meant every word of it, because right there I’d seen the world through Howie’s eyes. I’d seen what he saw, and I was in it to the end.
The others swept in. Henry. Howie. Clarence. Dave. I don’t know. I sucked air in and had water poured over my face, but I had to get out. I had to be away from the children I’d killed. I pulled free of whoever was holding me and went out through corridors that were too long and too confusing. When I finally got outside, I walked over to some grass and sat down with my head low.
‘Here,’ Reginald said and pressed a bottle of Lucozade into my hand. I wanted to tell him to fuck off. I’d killed kids. I’d shot children in the head and watched others die. What the fuck did he think Lucozade would do. He just nodded and told me to drink it.
I drank the Lucozade.
And while I did that. Reginald peered at the bite marks on my arms as Roy dumped his medical bag by my feet.
‘Okay. Let’s have a look,’ Roy said as he got in front of me.
I didn’t say anything. I drank the Lucozade and looked at Reginald.
‘Not too deep,’ Roy said. ‘This might smart a bit. Need to clean them out.’
He poured something on them. Something anti-bacterial that wouldn’t cause damage to an open wound. It should have hurt like a motherfucker, but it didn’t, nor was there as much blood as there should have been.
I looked at Reginald standing over me as the others came out of the school.
‘How is she?’ Henry asked.
‘She’s fine. Superficial wounds,’ Roy said. ‘I’ve taped them up for now and we’ll keep an eye for signs of infection.’
I realised that I wouldn’t get an infection because I already had one.
‘You alright, bird?’ Frank asked.
I nodded and held my hand out for him to pull me up.
‘I’m good,’ I said as Henry and the others came closer.
‘Get it out of your head and move on,’ Frank said quietly. ‘You tried. Okay? Don’t let it fester.’
‘Copy that,’ I said.
‘Boss,’ Blowers called, jogging down the entry road as we all turned to face him. ‘The garage had survivors too. Out the back,’ he said then shook his head. ‘Nick found them while he was getting the pumps working. All dead.’
‘Fuck,’ Howie said.
‘Suicide,’ Blowers added. ‘They all drank some fucking liquid or something. Load of kids and adults. One of the windows was busted in. Charlie said the infected were probably breaching when they took themselves out.’
‘How many?’ Howie asked.
‘Nick reckons about twenty.’
Howie didn’t reply but looked at the school then back to the houses still burning between us and the shopping area.
I could see the darkness in his eyes, and for the first time since meeting him, I truly understood why he was like the way he was.
I knew something else too.
I knew we had to find that CP and kill it, no matter what.
37
Diary of Reginald
We walked up to the main road to the garage where Nick and Tappy were getting fuel into the vehicles – during which time Nick had discovered another group of survivors had very recently died by way of suicide.
The mood was already dark, and it was getting darker with every passing moment.
If that wasn’t bad enough, Charlie then found the second school.
‘Next to the garage!’ she called through the radio. ‘I think it’s been breached.’
Dave and Mo took point with Frank close behind. But it was obvious we were too late. The windows were broken, and the boards were pulled off with bloodied smear marks all over the walls and ground.
Howie then came out shaking his head. Carmen looked darker than ever and even Henry was showing the strain of it.
There were no survivors.
Once more we went back onto the main road as Joan and Roy drove the SUV and the van up to join us. Our small fleet now refuelled, and while that was being sorted, we watched the coils of smoke rising from the housing estate opposite.
More rows of houses blackened and burnt. Smouldering. Some aflame. Some in ruins. Everywhere we turned was the same.
In every view of every direction, we saw the same thing. Smoke and fire. Bodies and death and that awful heat bore down upon us all. A most crushing heat beneath a sky of such dark blue I had never seen before. It didn’t look real. It was like a child had painted it with cheap watercolours.
But it wasn’t over. Southwater had more to offer, and as the team gathered to drink water and compose themselves, so the next explosion came from further up the road. A deep loud bang followed by a fireball rolling up into the sky.
We piled into the vehicles with everyone grabbing whatever seat they could. Henry and Bash ended up in the Saxon while Frank drove the SUV with Howie, Dave and Clarence, while Joan and Carmen got into the van with me and Roy.
&
nbsp; We set off at speed with the SUV powering ahead. Overtaking the Saxon to get there first as we heard another explosion and looked out to see another fireball rolling into the sky.
‘DIVERT!’ Clarence then ordered via the radio. ‘Go wide. Go wide. Gas cannisters.’
Tappy duly swerved hard and drove into a field with Roy hot on her heels as we once more started bouncing over rougher ground. Charlie was still on Jess. Galloping alongside the Saxon as we heard another bang followed by a flaming missile going over our heads.
‘It’s a caravan park,’ Clarence transmitted as we caught glimpse of static holiday homes all set in a row. Each one fed by reusable gas bottles that were now exploding due to the fires sweeping through.
We bounced back onto the road further along just in time to see a flaming gas bottle strike the end of a row of cottages, smashing through bricks with an explosion that tore out the front wall and set fire to the rooms within.
‘Someone’s inside!’ Tappy shouted, braking hard as we all rushed to see someone on fire with flames licking up over their head. They screamed and floundered then fell through the broken wall to land hard on the ground as Henry took aim and shot the person dead.
Another human life snuffed out. An unknown survivor that had stayed silent and alive, but who was now lying charred and burnt with their brains sinking into the melting tarmac.
It was beyond grim. It was truly awful and there was simply no end to the suffering they were being exposed to, but then I’d already seen how bad Southwater had been hit.
Which is why I had taken them there.
This was the plan and it had to happen this way.
But still it wasn’t over and as we stared at the melting body lying upon the melting tarmac, we heard the next lot of gunshots.
‘Load up!’ Howie shouted as he jumped into the SUV with Clarence, Dave and Frank. Henry was close to the van by then and got into the front with Roy.
‘Go on!’ he ordered at Roy taking too long.
We pulled away with the Saxon already ahead and the SUV going wide around us to overtake. Joan and Carmen were in the back with me. All of us could feel the thrum of the game with adrenalin coursing through our bodies.
