The Fall Series (Book 3): The Fence Walker

by Cross, Stephen

  Ethan pulled at his little brother, but he didn’t move.

  A heavy moan filled the rain-soaked air. Then a hiss from behind him. Ethan spun around to see another zombie behind him. This one used to be a woman. It had long blond hair.

  Charlie screamed, and Ethan realized that his young brother was slipping from his grasp. No-stomach zombie was on its knees. It bent its head down and took a bite out of Charlie’s leg.

  Charlie screamed. That meant Charlie was finished. You turned into one of them when you were bitten.

  More zombies appeared all around them. They were surrounded. Wherever Ethan looked, they were there. Different bits of faces and bodies missing. Ethan couldn’t breathe, his terror engulfed his whole small body.

  “Dadddddy!” he shouted, as loud as he could. He stared at the aerial and screamed and yelled, come on Daddy, hear me, come and get me Daddy, please.

  Something gripped his neck and a pain like nothing he had ever experienced stabbed from his neck through his whole body. Everything was white. Everything was gone

  Sandra had slept in.

  A lot.

  She looked a the bedside clock, its red numbers taunting her with a time well into the day after the night before. Heavy rain battered the window of her bedroom. She briefly wondered how long she would have slept for if not for the sound of the storm, then that thought disappeared in a haze of pain and nausea.

  He head thumped, and her stomach rolled. She leaped from the bed and ran to the bathroom, her feet kicking a half-empty can of Carling lager. It rolled across the floor emitting a potent smell of beer, which only hastened the emptying of her stomach.

  She reached the toilet bowl just in time and painfully expunged everything she had eaten and drank in the past twelve hours. Her mouth and nose filled with the bitter spill of stomach acid, and then she was done. She coughed and spat for a few minutes, then reached up to the sink and scooped a few handfuls of water, sweet tasting after the vomit, into her mouth.

  She ambled into the chalet’s lounge. There was no sign of Derek. It was usual for him to do a runner anyway. That was just his way. He kept coming back though, so she didn’t make a fuss. It was nice to have company - any company - in these times.

  “Ah fuck,” she whispered to herself. The patio doors were open. They had sat out there last night, must have been too pissed to remember to close them. Not the first time it had happened. She glanced to the kitchen, expecting to see the contents of the bins split over the floor - last time a fox, or some other stupid animal, had gotten in and feasted on all sorts of horrible crap that she had to clean up. Nothing though, she’d gotten away with it.

  She went to close the doors, then paused. A line of washing was hanging between the back fence and the chalet. “Fuck,” she said again. It was soaking. It took forever for things to dry in the chalet. She mulled for a moment as to whether to leave them, but then how long would the rain last? Could be days knowing these storms.

  She put on the pair of dirty white trainers sitting by the patio doors. She didn’t bother with a coat; the rain might help her feel better. It certainly couldn’t make her feel any worse.

  Sandra made her way tentatively across the decking; it got slippy in the wet - she had found out the hard way one evening, landing on her arse in front of Derek. The two bottles of wine hadn’t helped of course…

  She began to pull the clothes off the line. She didn’t care that the pegs were falling to the floor, she would deal with them when she felt better. The mission, for now, was simple, get the bloody washing in.

  A groan from behind her.

  Derek. She smiled to herself. Not like him to come back, must have had a good night. Or maybe he just needed some looking after; going by that groan, he was feeling just as rough as her.

  She waited for him to speak, but he didn’t. Instead, heavy irregular thumps on the decking.

  “I can hear you, you know.”

  She turned, and screamed. She didn’t have to think about screaming, it just occurred, like breathing, or her heart beating. She stumbled backward and slipped on the decking, banging her head. She hadn’t meant to step back and had cursed herself as she did so, but again, it was nothing she could help.

  Four zombies stomped clumsily towards her. They looked like they wore long dark wigs, a macabre part of her thought of eighties rock bands from Europe.

  The Fence was meant to keep them out.

  The one at the front, with the biggest fright wig, slipped, just like her, and landed on her torso.

  She tried to scramble back, but every effort to move was transferred into screaming. Nothing but screaming, as the zombie ripped a juicy chunk of flesh from her stomach. Blood sprayed as it dug in further. A strange sensation, like she was being emptied, took over he body. The zombie's mouth was being stuffed with her entrails, her guts. Seeing what was supposed to be inside her outside of her, was enough, and thankfully, she met darkness.

  Johnny stared out the window in disbelief. The Fence was supposed to keep them out, but there they were, the horrible rotten fuckers. Four of them, walking down the road as if they owned the place. Had all sorts of horrible shit all over them, looked like the crap he used to clean out of drains when he worked for the council that summer. Shit job that was. Council were a bunch of pricks. Just like those rotten nobheads outside.

  He shook his head in disgust. Those fuckers and their kind had killed his missus. He had watched them tear her face off, eat it like they had no shame. The fellas on the tele had said they weren’t human anymore. Like insects, thought Johnny.

  That fat fucker he shared his chalet with, Bob, was out on a Run. Looked like he would have to take care of this himself. Not that he minded. It had been two months since he had cracked any heads. One thing about life in the holiday park was that it was quiet. No more cracking heads.

  He went to the door, didn’t bother with his coat. It was only a bit of rain. You don’t need a coat to crack heads. He picked up his trusty baseball bat, hickory, he had found it in some sports superstore on the day of the Fall. He’d never watched baseball, looked like a shit sport, he was a football man. One thing the yanks had got right though, was that baseball bats made great weapons for cracking heads.

  He walked out into the rain. Where was everyone else? Fuckers all tucked up wishing they could settle down with a cuppa and watch the Morning Show no doubt… Seemed everyone here had forgotten the world had ended.

  “Oi! Fuckers! Get over here.” He marched at a steady pace towards the interlopers. Their stupid rotten heads turned, followed by their bodies. Moans of excitement, dirty fuckers.

  He raised his bat and walked to the first of the group, some fella in what looked like a suit, although it was threadbare. Some posh twat. The skin was white, slimy, like a jellyfish or something.

  Thump. He smashed the zombie’s head with a hard swing. The skull caved immediately, and the zombie fell dead, like a stone dropped into a lake. Johnny had got good at killing them. He’d seen other people swinging like they were at the fucking fairground. You need to crush that shit, smash the skull, force the shattered bones inward, the spiked fragments killing the brain off.

  He swung for the next. Same result. Felt good.

  Another moan from behind. Johnny turned to see two more emerging from a gap between two chalets. That path led to the beach. Is that where they were coming from? That stupid bastard Jack must have left a hole. Johnny would have a word with him.

  Let’s take care of these fuckers first.

  Swing, smash. Swing, smash. They didn’t even get close to Johnny.

  He turned to take care of the new arrivals. Except there was five now. Six. Seven. Coming out of the path like a march of ants. Insects. Dirty fucking insects these zombies.

  “You all want a piece do you?” Johnny grinned and marched towards the growing group. He swung and thumped his way through the crowd. But they kept coming. Movement in the corner of his eye. Groans. He looked behind. More from the other end of
the road. All with their eyes on him. Walking towards him. Dark figures in the rain.

  The first pangs of doubt entered Johnny’s mind. All his exit paths were cut off. He was surrounded. The enemy had him cornered. If he didn't swing his way out then… Shut up, lad. Easy pickings.

  “Come on then,” said Johnny, psyching himself up, ignoring the gnawing fear growing in the pit of his stomach.

  He darted and danced around the mass of undead, swinging and crashing his way, splitting skulls in his wake. The crowd showed no sign of thinning. If anything, it was getting thicker.

  A zombie in swimming shorts, its left arm missing like some comic shark victim, gnashed close to him. “You bastard,” said Johnny. He swung and connected, but the skull didn’t shatter. He swung again, this time getting the hit.

  But it was too late, he had lost his rhythm. His arms felt heavy.

  Johnny turned quickly to take care of the one he knew was coming up behind him, but now there were two. Don’t hesitate Johnny lad, just do it.

  One, two. The second one didn’t die. He swung again.

  Too late.

  Sharp pain in his arm. Hands wrapping around his neck. Rotten teeth pulled at the skin on his bicep and blood spurted in an arc.

  “You dirty bastard!” shouted Johnny.

  He pulled his arm away, losing a peel of flesh. He yelled and gnashed his teeth against the pain. He put the bottom of his baseball bat through the eye of the offending zombie.

  Something gripped him from behind. A pain in his neck, a deep, stuttering pain. Hands all over him.

  Too late, Johnny boy, this is the end.

  He died just before the arrival of the mob.

  Matty and his wife, Jade, were two of the lucky ones. Matty had seen so many people post-Fall who had lost their children, their parents, their partners. Him and Jade had managed to go through the whole shit-show and come out the other side with each other. All they needed. No problem. Just take it easy.

  Before the Fall, he had no job and no need for one. The government gave him a roof over his head. Welfare checks for his food. All he needed was his Playstation, a bag of weed and his Jade. They understood each other. They knew what was necessary for a good life - not much.

  Hell, even after the Fall, here they were, sitting pretty in the holiday camp. They had got here a day after the Fall - stroke of genius on his part. “It will be well locked down. All them rich fuckers, they don’t want no one getting in. You won’t be getting zombies in there.”

  He was right. They’d partied hard the first few nights.

  He’d taken up a job inventorying stock - seemed like it was expected. None of that Running shit though - he wasn’t going out there, not with all those dopey zombies fuckers all over the place.

  That was how it was meant to be, him in here, them out there. So what the fuck were the zombies doing in here now?

  He stared out the window, his arm around Jade. They both had sore heads from a heavy vodka session last night. He could do without this shit now.

  “What the fuck’s happening Matty?”

  “No idea. Fucked up is what it is. Someone hasn’t done their job. That lazy bastard Jack, obviously messed up with the Fence.”

  “Fuckin’ prick.”

  The horde was pushing through the main road. Hundreds of the fuckers. All sorts of messed up. Missing stomachs, gashed legs. All seems to be covered in black and green slimy shit. Like they were a weird bunch of sea creatures.

  “What do we do?” said Jade.

  “Let’s just keep our heads down. Someone will sort it out.”

  Matty pulled the blinds shut, just enough that he could peep out.

  Further down the road, some fast movement, faster than zombies. A commotion going on. Shit going down.

  “Check this out,” said Matty, moving to the side to allow Jade to peer down the road.

  A group of people was fighting zombies. Golf clubs, cricket bats, baseball bats, sledgehammers, even a samurai sword, all swung, decapitating and crushing zombie skulls.

  “It’s a right dirty mess out there,” said Matty. He sucked in hard as he watched one of the defenders get their necks pulled out as a zombie grabbed them from behind. Blood spurted high into the air.

  “Fuckin’ hell,” he laughed. “Check that out!”

  “Fuuuuuck,” said Jade. “It’s like a fucking fountain!”

  Greg’s heart raced. Like, really raced, like it never had before in his seventeen years of life. Once him and his old mate, Stoney, had charged down Witches’ Hill in the snow on some old Estate Agent’s For-Sale sign. They had just missed getting castrated on branches, rocks, and fences on the way down. As they had gathered speed, and the hill had got steeper, he thought his heart was going to burst from his chest. His body had burned with adrenalin. His hands had shaken, and he had almost pissed himself.

  It was nothing like now.

  Something strange was going on in his brain. Like a laser focus. Like he had unlocked some shit-kicking level with a shit load of superpowers. This was his final form.

  One, two, three, he smashed the skull of the nearest zombie with this cricket bat. It crushed like he had stood on an egg. They seemed soft, this lot, softer than those he remembered at the beginning of the Fall.

  On to the next one, he already knew where it was, like a sixth sense, he could hear them, feel them, like it was the mother fucking force. Another swing, another crushed zombie skull and another corpse in the ground, but no time to celebrate, onto the next. He was a warrior, he was a badass.

  To think, only ten minutes ago he had been cowering at the side of the sports hall behind his dad as the riot had raged around him. What he’d wanted was to get home, lock his door and hide. He wasn’t into this fighting shit.

  Then that old fella, Mick, or Mac, or something, had whipped everyone up, warned them of the horde.

  He and Dad had raced to their chalet and got their weapons. Seemed everyone had. Everyone forgot about the riot. Guess people just wanted to fight and were happier to fight the zombies.

  He looked for his dad, nowhere to be seen. There were too many zombies. The fight was along the main road that ran through the heart of the holiday park. The zombies had filled it, pouring in from the beach. They would stop them here.

  Another swing, take that fucker, thought Greg as another skull bit the dust.

  He glanced to his right. Charlotte, she was one of the Runners, only a few years older than him, about twenty. Fit as fuck. Greg gasped as a zombie on the ground grabbed her leg and bit down hard. She screamed and her eyes locked with Greg’s. She reached out a hand to him. The terror in her eyes. Greg saw it but didn’t know what to do, how to help her. They bit you, and you were a goner.

  What could he do? Focus. He turned away and smoked the nearest undead fucker. That one was for Charlotte.

  Mac ran through the mess of fighting humans and hungry undead. It as hard to tell the difference when moving fast, so Mac didn’t try. He just avoided everything. A zombie would bite, and a human may swing for him - who could tell who was what in this confusion?

  Chaos. A man lay on the ground, four zombies crowded around his body, pulling a chain of pink fibrous material from a large hole in the man’s stomach. The man screamed, staring at the sky, his eyes blank with terror and pain. Mac recognized him, he had been drinking a beer last night in the club and played pool with two of his friends.

  Mac left the main road when he got the chance. Several cul-de-sacs and avenues ran parallel to the main road. He hoped they would be less busy.

  They were, but not completely empty. Groups of the dead wandered mindlessly, looking for the feast that their friends on the main road were fighting. Somehow lost their way. They milled around chalets. They bobbed around windows. They bumped against doors.

  Frightened eyes peered from behind blinds and curtains. Trying not to be seen, but curious none the less. Every now and again, a door opened, and someone would charge from the chalet with a rallying cr
y, joining the fray.

  Mac began to think it was lucky the riot had taken place. A hundred or so people fired up, lusting for blood. What would have happened otherwise; would everyone have hidden in their chalets like scared rabbits?

  He turned a corner, nearly bumped into a zombie. A woman in a suit. Slime of the ocean. Rotten sanguine skin. He pushed it out of the way and continued running.

  Eventually, he reached his chalet near the end of the camp. A group of undead stood nearby. On seeing him, they turned, groaned, hissed, clicked.

  He banged on the door of the chalet.

  “Ellie! It’s me, Mac, open up.”

  He looked behind him, a large group building.

  “Come on Ellie! Open up!”

  The door pulled open, an arm shot out and grabbed him, pulled him in. Mac fell into the chalet and steadied himself on the wall.

  “Jesus, Jack, what you doing?”

  Jack locked the door, looked out the window. “They follow you?”

  “A few saw me…”

  Jack looked even wilder than usual. His eyes wide open, his skin flushed. Ellie was sitting on the couch, cuddling Eddy who was crying. Annie lay snuggled next to Ellie. The little girl looked terrified. Ellie had a look of tired defiance, and was that anger?

  “Fuck’s sake,” said Jack. “They’re on to us.”

  Jack was breathing fast. He rested his forehead against the wall. “Think, think, think,” he mumbled to himself.

  Mac looked at Ellie and mouthed “What’s going on?” She shook her head, nodded at Jack, then was about to say or do something, but stopped herself, glancing at Annie beside her.

  “They can’t get in here, Jack,” said Mac. “We’ll be ok.”

  “You shouldn’t have let them follow you. They've heard the baby. More will come.”

  Mac felt anger rise. A slow-building fire, only smoldering for now. Breathe, Mac, relax.

  “You guys ok?” said Mac to Ellie.

  Ellie nodded. “Yes. we’re fine.”

  He could tell they weren’t.