Inside the cab of the van, we could all sit quite comfortably on upholstered seats and I had a brief feeling of safety at being inside a vehicle again. Out of the wind and rain, away from the grasping hands of the undead and just being dry. It was a pleasant feeling.
The engine roared to life as Cass turned the key and I smiled. One less problem to worry about, I’d had images of the van being gone, or so run down it wouldn’t start. Now, all we had left to do was make it to a factory that supposedly housed cannibals. Great.
We’d gone just shy of a mile when we came to an abandoned car that had been pushed to one side of the road. Cass slowed the van as we drove past, careful on the narrow road not to get stuck between the car and the wall.
It looked undisturbed with stubborn dirt on the bonnet and roof that refused to be moved by the rain. Likely been there for some time and abandoned when it had run out of fuel. A few belongings still remained and I guessed them to have been left behind in favour for more useful items. I wondered what had happened to them.
Further along the road, bags and personal items had been dumped amongst the weeds that grew beside the moss-covered stone wall. Experience told me that someone had carried them this way and dropped them when they had to run… or fight. I hoped they’d won but then if they had, they’d have taken their belongings with them.
No matter where we went, it seemed we would be confronted with the reminder that death stalked the land. That the ravenous dead walked and hunted the living. Further proof that the world was damned and my hopes of making it better faded just that little bit further.
We had been protected in the Lake District. The narrow roads, tall hills, and mountains had shielded us from much of the chaos over the winter. It’d been a smart idea to go there and yet still I felt guilty for surviving as we had. For not suffering as much as so many others.
“Village coming up,” Cass said with a nod to a sign attached to a metal pole beside the road.
“Should be fine,” I said as I did my best to shake myself from the funk I seemed to be in. “Bess said they brought the van through it and it was clear. Best be careful though.”
She grunted and stared straight ahead through the windscreen, eyes fixed on the road. She wasn’t convinced which was for the best. The last thing any of us needed was to become complacent.
Chapter 19 - Ryan
My blade sank into the belly of the Feral as I collided with it on the bank of the stream. It seemed to be having the same problem I was in staying upright on the muddy banking. I shoved it away and jumped back, the handle of my knife sticking out from its stomach.
It circled me, crouched low as I moved to keep it in sight. The distant cries of my friends as they fought the Shamblers came to me, followed by a splash as someone or something dropped into the stream further down.
I kicked out as it dashed in, my boot connecting with its hip sending it spinning away to the side. It landed in the mud and muck for just a moment before surging to its feet and leaping at me once again.
An elbow to its face was blocked by its arms and I swore at how difficult it was being. It growled low in its throat and ducked beneath my next swing before darting to one side. Neither of us eager to get in close to the other without more of an advantage.
Wispy strands of pale hair stuck up from its head and an expression of hate seemed permanently etched onto its sallow face. Broken nails caked with god knows what kind of muck came perilously close to my face as it swung its arms and tried to rake my flesh.
Someone cried out in pain and I looked around for something to use as a weapon. It darted in once more and I ducked down, tucked in my shoulder as best I could as I caught it below the ribs, then stood up straight, catapulting it over my back to land sprawled onto the ground.
I stooped to pick up a green moss covered stone about the size of my fist and leapt at the Feral. It rolled to one side and was on its feet as my improvised weapon pounded the dirt where its skull had been moments before.
A weary ache was dragging at my limbs as I pushed myself to my feet as it ran at me once again. I let it collide with me, arms wrapping around my back as I hit the stone against its head as hard as I could. Once, twice and it howled. A sound I’d not yet heard from one before.
My third strike had cold blood spraying across my face and on the fourth I heard the crack of its skull. By the fifth bloody strike, it released its hold on me and fell to the ground, dead for good. I dropped the stained rock and sank to my knees as I reached for my knife.
The damned things had been chasing us for the better part of an hour and had finally caught us as we forded the small stream in a stand of woods. I’d killed two Shamblers before the Feral leapt on my back.
I didn’t stop the grin that came though, as I considered the fight I’d just survived. It had been hard and incredibly exhilarating to have that challenge. I yanked the knife from its belly and silently admonished myself about my tendency to stab low when caught by surprise.
That kind of injury was meaningless to the undead and just ended up with my losing my weapon.
With a weary sigh, I pushed myself to my feet. The battle was raging further downstream where my friends had been forced by the number of zombies we faced. I guess it’s time to go help them.
As I turned to go, I paused as I remembered what I’d taken from the ambulance and my gaze fell to the dead Feral. It wouldn’t hurt to have a little insurance. I took a minute to do what was needed and then headed off in search of my friends.
Pat had his back to a tree and was holding five zombies at bay with swings of his club and his own meaty fists. Another four lay dead on the ground and without hesitation, I thrust my blade into the back of the skull of the nearest. Half a minute later, before they’d even registered my presence another two were dead.
The fourth fell as it noticed me and turned in time for my knife to stab up below its jaw and the final zombie was killed by a blow from Pats club. His eyes met mine and he nodded his thanks as he doubled over, hands on his knees as he gasped for breath. He looked as exhausted as I felt.
“Gregg?” he asked and I shrugged. “Damn, he seemed to have most of them following him.”
I followed him as he pushed away from the tree and set off in the direction he’d seen Gregg go. It didn’t take us long to find him.
“What the hell…” Pat said as he slid to a stop.
“Little help guys?” Gregg called from where he perched halfway up an old sycamore tree. All around the base were the undead, arms stretched up to reach him.
With a shake of his head, Pat readied his club. “Bloody idiot.”
I laughed at his irritation and joined him in dispatching the seven zombies that crowded around the tree. It didn’t take long with the two of us and Gregg was soon able to climb down and join us.
“Thanks.”
“No problem,” I told him as I stooped to clean my knife on the grass.
“There’s more coming,” he said as he cocked his head to the side. “You can hear them.”
“Most of them are lost somewhere on the other side of the stream,” I said. “The Feral’s dead at least.”
“You had the Feral to kill as well?” he said with a shake of his head. “Damn, I thought I had it rough.”
“I had nine,” Pat said. “Two more than you and I didn’t need to climb a tree.”
“Better to climb a tree and live like a coward, than die at its base.”
“True,” Pat agreed with a grin for his friend.
“Come on,” I said with a look back over my shoulder to where we’d come from. “We need to get moving or Lily will be at the factory before us.”
On weary limbs we pushed our way through the undergrowth and away from the zombies that were still in pursuit of us. The flight from them had taken us in a southerly route and we turned back to what we hoped was the right direction to find the factory.
By all accounts it shouldn’t be that hard,
being as it was in an almost direct line to the east from the compound laughingly called Haven by its occupants. They’d been lucky, the western districts that made up the county of Cumbria, had barely half a million people living within its borders.
Those borders also contained pretty much every mountain in England that topped three thousand feet. The combination of hills, mountains, lakes, streams and access only from the east or south past the Lakes, made it one of the few places in the UK that hadn’t been hit that hard by the undead.
Haven and its few occupants had held their own against a few thousand Shamblers. They hadn’t met a horde that numbered in the tens of thousands. They hadn’t had the millions of zombies that spilled out from the cities.
Most of the undead would have followed the roads north. We’d seen evidence of that as they filtered into the Lake District where we’d had our island. Those would eventually start to spill out into these coastal districts while those hundreds of thousands travelling along the wide motorways would eventually fill Carlisle and spread outwards.
No, the people of Haven had done okay for themselves but the storm had barely begun and soon it would hit them with all its fury. I fully intended to be in Scotland by the time that happened.
I wiped a hand across my face to wipe away the cold rain water that ran down it. The trees had at least provided us with some respite from the rain but as we passed out from beneath those branches, we once again found ourselves getting soaked to the skin.
Pat seemed to have a better idea of the direction we should take so I allowed him to lead the way, his usual reserve and quiet presence was tested by Gregg who seemed intent on filling the air with the sound of his chatter, not caring that his conversation was almost entirely one-sided.
We crossed a field of wild grass and bright yellow flowers. I had a brief moment of wonder at how long it would take the plants to reclaim the world now that the farms were no longer operating.
There would be no harvests, no herds of cattle and sheep to eat those grasses. Fruit would go unpicked, weeds un-pulled and buildings would slowly crumble from lack of maintenance. A decade? Perhaps two and the world would be a strange place with just remnants of the civilizations that had come before.
I was under no illusion that humanity would survive this apocalypse with any semblance of what we had been before. No, it would be a wilder, hardier people that came through this in the end. The weak would be culled, those lacking the will to do what they must would be preyed upon by stronger creatures. It would be the age of the predator. Not an unpleasant thought admittedly.
“You think that’s the place?” Pat asked, his voice breaking into my solemn contemplation. I glanced up to see he was pointing at a cluster of buildings in the distance. I shrugged as I had no idea and he frowned.
“Perhaps we should proceed as though it is,” I said with a careful inspection of the land between us and the factory. It wasn’t looking good.
Open fields between us and the road, we’d be seen long before we could reach the buildings that ran alongside it. Worse than that, the road ran to the north-west and from what we had been told, all the way to the coast. That was the road Lily and the others would drive down. We needed to get finished before they arrived or they would be seen long before they reached the factory.
Storage sheds and what looked to be a small water treatment plant were at either side of the factory that had been built alongside the original hangars for the airfield. I could just make out beyond those buildings, a screen of trees that protected the view of the homes that were just visible.
“What do we do?” Gregg asked.
The factory itself was a large building of red break with a flat roof. At least one tall chimney stack indicated they had a furnace for disposing of waste. It was hard to make out from where we were, but I was confident only a low stone wall surrounded it. At least two figures were walking a perimeter around the roof as they kept watch.
“Clear line of sight nearly all the way around and the only place we could sneak up to it, is on the opposite side,” I said.
I rubbed at my chin as I considered options. “We could wait until nightfall and wander in under cover of darkness but Lily will be here before then.”
“So what do we do?” he repeated.
“You won’t like it,” I said with a grin when he groaned.
“Probably not mate. What then?”
“We need a distraction.”
“What kind of distraction?” he asked as he glanced from me to Pat and back again. “Aw no, no way.”
“It’ll be easy. You wander off that way,” I said with a gesture to the south-east. “We’ll swing around north a little ways and when those sentries on the roof notice you, we’ll make a run for it.”
“Yeah but if they notice me then won’t people come after me?” Gregg asked. “Cannibal type people.”
“They won’t eat you there and then,” I pointed out. His eyes widened and he shook his head in denial as he realised I was serious. “If they catch you, they’ll take you back to the factory first. We’ll be there by then.”
“Nope, not doing it,” he said shaking his head, hands held up before him. I flicked a glance to Pat who shrugged.
“Someone needs to,” I said with as much patience as I could muster.
“You bloody do it then,” he snapped.
“I would do, but whoever goes to the factory will need to kill a number of people. I’m fairly sure you would prefer not to do that.”
“What about him?” he pointed at Pat accusingly. “He could do it and look at the size of him, they’ll think all their birthdays have come at once when they think of how many he could feed.”
“He’s a better fighter than you but he’s also slower,” I said. “Whoever leads them away will need to be nimble.”
“Fuck!”
“Just think mate,” Pat added. “If you don’t do this then Cass will be in danger.”
“Oh fuck again,” Gregg said with an expression of abject misery. “Fine, I’ll do it but you two owe me big time.”
Chapter 20 - Lily
“Again!” Becky almost growled as the van slowed to a halt. I wanted to echo her but poor Cass had no control over the state of the roads and she was already looking a little wild-eyed whenever Becky swore.
“Can’t be helped,” was the only thing I could think to say as I opened the passenger side door and climbed out of the van on weary legs.
Deep breaths, count them off, I repeated to myself as I took a firm grip on the handle of my club with both hands. I focused on the string that wound around the end of the timber to form a handle, the feel of the rain drops as they ran down my face and the sound they made as they pattered against the hood of my coat.
The first zombies skull cracked as my club hit it, the second fell to its knees as an overhead swing crashed down onto the top of its head. Becky had the final one pushed up against a parked car with one hand pressed against its chest while the club in her other beat against its head and shoulders. She seemed to be taking her frustrations out on it, which was probably better than taking them out on us.
“I think you got it,” I called to her as I pulled open the car door. Nothing much of interest in the musty interior but the keys were in the ignition. I turned them not really expecting anything and was rewarded with silence. The engine was as dead as the zombies we’d just dispatched.
With nothing else to do, I released the handbrake and called the other women to me. Cass took hold of the wheel since there was no way I was having her exert herself pushing the car in her condition. Becky joined me at the rear and together we pushed the car with all our might.
It took more than a little effort but slowly it began to move and Cass expertly guided it to the side of the road. I sighed as it rolled to a stop. It was the fifth such encounter we’d found and I was beginning to grow as weary of them as Becky.
“Give me a hand,” I said as I grabbed a pa
ir of feet. The other woman grabbed the shoulders as Cass retreated to the cab of the van, arms raised in surrender at my glare. I may have been a little overprotective of her but this was the first baby for our little family and I was damned sure nothing would go wrong if I could help it.
We dragged the bodies to the side of the road and left them in a disgusting and malodorous heap behind the car. A few extra minutes were spent trying to clean our hands and we climbed back into the van.
“You’d have thought they’d have made sure the roads were clear,” Becky muttered.
“Probably didn’t even occur to them,” I said softly. “I don’t think they’ve been out of Haven much since this began so probably didn’t realise how bad the roads could be.”
“Still… just annoys me.”
I shared a grin with Cass as she started the engine. The problem was I could actually understand the frustration but it was so rare to see the usually so self-assured woman out of sorts, that I couldn’t help but be amused.
Cass drove the van slowly along the road. Between the rain that seemed to change from heavy to light then back again every five minutes and the frequent obstacles in the road, visibility was poor. It didn’t help that we had a bomb in the back of the van either.
Along the road on either side of us were muddy fields of green grass. Here and there in those fields was an occasional zombie. Sometimes they would become aware of us and start after us in slow stumbling steps, others they would stare off into the distance, unmoving as though they were the world’s ugliest scarecrows.
It wasn’t long before I began to notice other things in those fields. Mounds of bone and skin that had once been cows, tattered wool hides that had been torn from the sheep. The undead had feasted on the animals and I wondered at what that meant for our future.
At the moment, we were scavenging food from people’s homes and businesses. We’d maybe grow some vegetables and fish the rivers and lakes as well as the sea. Some point would come though where that scavenged food was gone and we’d need to be self-sustaining. How hard that would be without any farm animals, I couldn’t say. It was one more thing to add to my ever growing list of worries though.
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