by Luke Duffy
Kieran felt the need to state his argument a little clearer. "You’ve taught us how to use the weapons, and you’ve taught us how to drive."
During the first months after Marcus and his team's arrival, they had instructed everyone in the house on how to use the weapon systems that they had brought with them. Marcus had felt like he was an instructor again at the recruit depot, constantly drilling the trainees, including his wife and children, with the rifles and pistols.
They advanced quickly and Marcus and Stu believed that they learned fast from necessity, understanding that the world had changed, and regardless of their views on guns, they were vital to their survival.
Kieran looked to his left at Stan for support before he continued. Stan nodded, encouraging his friend to go on.
"I'm not stupid and the way I see it, we're pretty much under siege here. The cars we have here are useless. They're no use to us for escape because of the amount of dead surrounding us. If we need to run from this place, it will be on foot and over the cliff to the north. From there, we will need vehicles and supplies, and we think we know where best to get them."
"Agreed," Stu nodded. "Go on."
"Well, I think the main aim of this 'scouting mission', or whatever you call it…"
"A recce; as in reconnaissance," Stu corrected him.
"Yeah, that’s it. Well the main aim, should be to get some cars, say a couple of four-by-fours and people carriers, stock them and leave them on the main road to the north of the park, beyond the open fields. That way, if we have to run, it’s a short hard slog for a mile or so, then into the cars and away we go."
Marcus grunted and nodded. "You're not just an ugly face are you?"
Kieran nodded in reply, his eyes locked on Stu.
"Okay, you’ve convinced me, but like I said, this is not a jolly that we're going on. It seems to me that you were wasted as just a hoodie scrote-bag. You should've joined the army, could've made something of yourself, brains as well as brawn."
"Not my thing, Stu. I don’t handle discipline very well."
"And what the fuck do you think this is?" Stu growled and leaned forward, glaring at the younger man. "You will be doing exactly as I say on this, Kieran, or I will drop you like a bad habit. Do you understand me?"
Kieran grinned back at him. "This is different, mate. This is survival!"
Jim stood in the gravelled parking area in front of the house, a cigarette hanging from his lips and talking loudly to Hussein in his Texan drawl as he checked his equipment.
"I tell you what; buddy, I'm actually happy to be going out there. I've been going stir-crazy, cooped up in this place."
Hussein nodded. "Yes, Jim, it's been a while since we went beyond the walls." He turned to the tall thin American, to whom he had become a close friend. "What do you think it will be like out there now?"
Jim puffed on the cigarette, keeping it clutched between tightly closed lips. A mist of blue grey smoke plumed out from his nostrils, reminding Hussein of a dragon that he had once seen in a children's book, many years ago.
"I don’t know, more of the same shit, I guess. Dead people walking, dusty buildings, abandoned cars…you know; the usual stuff. I don’t think we'll see many bars or clubs open that’s for sure." Jim grinned at Hussein. "We are outnumbered by about twenty million to one I think, and it has been a long time since we heard or saw any news broadcasts. Maybe we're all that’s left?"
"Yeah," Hussein replied, deep in thought.
Stu pulled back the cocking lever on his rifle, just a centimetre or two, enough to see inside and confirm that there was a round in the chamber and the weapon was ready to fire. He knew there was, but he always liked to be double sure.
"You all set?" Marcus asked as he stood beside him.
"Yeah, pretty much." Stu began checking that all his ammunition pouches were secure and that his radio was switched on. "Just waiting on those two lunatics, Ant and Dec, they know what time we're leaving."
Marcus smiled at the nickname for Kieran and Stan. The comparison to the Saturday night entertainers never failed to amuse him.
"Listen, Stu, don’t take any chances out there. Get what we need and get back. We can start planning the rest once we have the vehicles in place."
Stu looked up from adjusting his pistol belt. "You worry too much, old man. We'll be fine."
Marcus was about to speak again when the doors to the house suddenly crashed open. His mouth involuntarily fell open as he gazed upon the spectacle that greeted them. More people began silently filing out from the house, glancing from one another and scratching their heads in disbelief.
Steve slowly walked down the steps towards Marcus and Stu, glancing back over his shoulder every now and then, checking that what he saw was real. He approached his brother, shaking his head.
"What the fuck is that?" Marcus asked with his eyes locked on the two figures at the top of the steps that led into the mansion.
"Uh, I think it is Kieran and Stan," Stu replied with an air of doubt.
The two figures standing before them looked around at the silent crowd and then back at each other.
"What, what's up with you lot?" Although he was unrecognisable, everyone identified the voice as belonging to Stan.
Marcus shook his head. "We're fine, Stan. We thought maybe there was something up with you actually. What the fuck are you wearing?"
Stan was clad from head to foot in a black leather biker's suit, including a helmet; the same one that Tony had brought with him when he arrived at the park.
Kieran was not as fortunate to find such equipment. Instead, he had kitted himself out in a mixture of sports padding along with the shoulders and breastplate from a rusted and discoloured suit of armour.
"We found this stuff in one of the store rooms. We thought it would stop those things from being able to eat us," Kieran replied in an unsure voice, now doubting his mastermind idea.
Jim grinned up at them. "Yeah, good idea if you're planning on walking into a crowd of them. Let me know how you make out. Me, I'd just prefer to avoid the pus-bags in the first place if it's all the same to you."
The ludicrousness of the sight finally broke through the initial shock and bewilderment. Stu burst into hysterics, unable to contain himself or his composure. He bent double with tears rolling down his cheeks as he fought for breath.
The rest of the assembled onlookers began to smile and look about at one another.
Marcus' chest heaved and bounced as he laughed quietly to himself, shaking his head. "You know," he folded his arms and nodded towards the two bewildered young men standing on the steps, "you look like a really shit Darth Vader and you remind me of the Tin-Man, from 'The Wizard of Oz', only more camp than the original."
Those assembled that had not already done so, erupted into laughter.
5
After scaling down the cliff face, Stu and his team had to trample their way across the open fields to the north. It was a hard slog. Over eight months’ worth of un-harvested crops, tangles of weeds and the undulating ground that was hidden from view by the long grass, threatened to snare and trip them. On more than one occasion, a member of the patrol got his foot snagged and tumbled to the floor, huffing and cursing.
Stu imagined that it would be much more difficult in the dark, under pressure, possibly being pursued, and with less able-bodied people in tow. He stopped roughly half way across the field and dropped to one knee, allowing the others to close up around him.
Jim was the first to arrive. He squatted down in the dirt beside Stu and groaned with the weight of his weapons and ammunition.
"Is everything okay, Stu?" he grumbled.
Hussein, Kieran and Stan soon joined them. Stu looked up at the two young men who were sweating and panting as they crouched down.
"I told you it wouldn’t be a jolly, didn’t I? I bet you're glad you dumped that armour crap now."
Kieran shrugged. "Was just an idea, was all."
"What we stopping for, Stu?" Jim asked again
.
"This field," Stu replied looking at the chest high strands of dried corn that swayed back and forth in the cold wind. "It could be a death trap for us."
Jim nodded. "Yeah, I nearly broke my fucking neck a hundred metres back when I fell."
Hussein nodded. "It's not just that, Jim. If we have to leave the house in the dark, we could get split up and lost here, especially if there is a panic."
Stu nodded at Hussein, a faint glimmer flashed in his eyes as the former Iraqi insurgent read his thoughts. "Exactly; we need to make this field more traversable. When we get back, we'll have to organize clean up teams to flatten the grass and weeds and create a channel leading up to the road; maybe even guide ropes and markers, and a way to make that cliff easier to climb down."
At the road, they paused. It had taken them the best part of an hour since leaving the mansion and according to Stu's pacing; they had travelled roughly fifteen hundred metres, just short of a mile. He shook his head. In an emergency, they would need to cover the distance much faster.
It was a single lane country road with high hedgerows on either side. Stu looked to his left, then to his right. There were no sign of any vehicles abandoned on the road and nothing stirred. A hundred metres further up, they identified an area to cache the vehicles once they had found some suitable to their needs.
"This will be the ERV," Stu said to his team, indicating the lay-by on the side of the road.
He pulled out the Global Positioning System from his assault vest and recorded the grid reference that would be the Emergency Rendezvous.
"Once we get what we need, we bring them here, equip and then secure them."
It was five kilometres to the area where Kieran and Stan said that they knew of a showroom that would have the sort of vehicles they needed. Stu adjusted his equipment, shrugging his shoulders and letting the straps of his harness settle on his body, distributing the weight evenly. He moved off, taking the lead in the patrol with the others following on behind him in single file.
It was not long before they came to a blockage in the road. A car, its doors hanging open, had been abandoned in the centre of the narrow lane. Stu approached with caution. His weapon was pulled tightly in to his shoulder and the safety catch was off, with his finger lightly pressing against the trigger. Each step that he took was short and deliberate, avoiding any possibility of trips or stumbles as he moved forward and scanned the area around the car for possible threats.
A figure sat motionless, hunched over the steering wheel. Its badly decomposed corpse was barely recognisable as human and dark stains surrounded it in the seat. The clothing had become a mix of mottled greys and browns as they had faded from the effects of the elements and bodily fluids had seeped into the fibres from the rotting cadaver. The head had been cracked open and Stu guessed that the windscreen had been responsible judging from the web of fractured glass.
Keeping his weapon in the aim, Stu crouched and looked beneath the vehicle, scanning for anything that may be waiting for them behind the car. Ten metres away on the other side of the smashed car, another vehicle lay on its side, half buried in the unkempt hedgerow. Its front was crumpled inwards and Stu surmised that the two vehicles had been involved in a head on collision.
Jim stepped forward from behind Stu and pushed around to the left of the vehicle. He moved in a semi-crouch, bending at the knees while his body remained rigid and upright, his weapon forced into his shoulder as he peered over the sights.
Quickly and silently, he checked around the other side of the crashed car.
"Clear," he hissed back to Stu.
Hussein then pushed forward and together, he and Jim moved towards the vehicle that was entangled in the hedgerow. A few moments later, Jim signalled back to Stu that the area was free of any threat.
"We got to move them," Jim noted when he returned.
"Move what, the bodies?" Stan asked, alarmed.
He did not relish the idea of mauling with a rotted corpse. The memory of the festering bodies in the builders supply shop when he and Kieran made their escape from the gym rooftop all those months ago was still fresh in his mind.
"No, you dumbass, the cars," Jim replied. "We need to move the cars. This is probably going to be our escape route if we have to bug out from the park."
"Ah," Stan heard the penny drop.
Kieran leaned over, close to Stan's ear. "Think before you blurt things, dick head. You're making us look like a pair of retards," he whispered.
Stan shot him a look. "Oh, and your fucking suit of armour idea helped with our image?" He spat back in response.
"At least I was thinking. Unlike you…"
Stu turned at the sound of the raised voices between Kieran and Stan. "Hey, Ant and Dec," he whispered loudly. "There's probably a hundred of those things in the area, so shut the fuck up and give us a hand pushing this thing off the road."
Jim reached in to the car through the passenger door. The smell of the decayed body at such close proximity was enough to make his eyes begin to water. He reached across and made sure that the car was in neutral and the handbrake was off.
"Just hope the wheels haven't seized up," he groaned as he and Stu leant all their weight against the rear of the vehicle.
Kieran and Stan joined them and together, began to heave the heavy car to the side of the road while Hussein stood watch just a few metres away.
After a long minute of shoving and straining, the four of them managed to get the road clear. The car rolled in to the hedge, a loud clunk resounding as the undercarriage scraped against the tip of the small ditch at the side of the narrow country lane. The nose of the car crunched its way through the underbrush and came to a halt, entangled in the thorns and branches of the hedgerow.
Nothing could be done with the other car, but Stu judged that the vehicles they had in mind, would easily pass through the gap between the crashed cars and the edge of the road.
They continued with the patrol.
A few hours later, after skirting around the outer edges of an infested village, they reached the showroom. The five of them crouched, hidden amongst stalled traffic and the debris left over from the chaos and mass exodus that had clogged the roads in the early days, turning them into death traps and easy prey for the hordes of dead that increased in number by the hour.
Their objective was just a hundred metres away, a once shiny and glittering showroom that had flaunted and showed off its expensive and pristine cars out front, almost gloating at the ordinary people that passed by, eyeing the vehicles with admiration and envy. Only a select few, with wealth and luxury at their fingertips, had had the means to own such machines.
Now, it sat in ruin. Its faded and torn banners fluttered pathetically in the wind. Tantalising billboards, introducing their latest deals, went unnoticed by the wandering corpses that stumbled by, oblivious to the reduced offers and extended warranties. The cracked and broken bay windows of the shop floor stood in testament to the anarchy that had reigned during the time when the dead began to rise, and no one cared anymore about what kind of vehicle a person owned.
Scattered between the five living men and the car showroom was the wreckage of burnt out vehicles and overturned trucks. Dismembered bodies, their bones and skulls bleached white by the sun and the torn and bloodied rags of clothing, littered the 'no-man's land' that Stu and his team had to cross.
Stu raised his head just high enough to see over the hood of the car that hid them from view. He could see a few meandering bodies, shuffling between the cars and other detritus that was spread over the roads. Their sorrowful moans and low grunts strummed on his nerves like guitar strings being plucked too harshly. He felt icy cold sweat run down between his shoulder blades as he watched and waited, looking for a route through that would prevent detection.
"Right," he said in a whisper as he dropped back down beside the others, leaning his back against the driver's door of the car. "We'll move that way," he nodded to their right. "We can use the line of
traffic for cover. Once we get to the lights, we hang a left and cross the junction on the other side of that wrecked truck. From there, it's just twenty metres to the showroom."
Everyone nodded, understanding where he was going and how he would get there. Jim already had his toolkit stuffed in to the zip of his assault vest, ready to go straight to work on the vehicles as soon as they got there.
Stu took in a deep breath and began slowly raising himself into a half standing position. He raised his head to look through the driver's side window of the car, just high enough to give him one final look at their objective before they moved into action.
A grey face stared back at him through the opposite passenger window. Its lifeless dead eyes locked on his and opened wide with sudden realisation and excitement as it recognised a living human being within reach.
Stu felt his throat seize up and his heart skip a beat at the shock of the sudden comprehension that they had been detected.
"Shit, they know we're here," he hissed.
The face staring back at him from the other side of the vehicle opened its mouth wide, a long lingering moan erupting from its mangled throat. It launched itself at him, its head rebounding from the glass of the passenger window with a loud resounding thump. Its decaying brain was unable to understand that there was glass and steel between it and the human on the other side as it attacked again.
More figures heard the noise of the growling, agitated reanimated corpse, and began to emerge from between the vehicles to investigate. All around, Stu and his men heard the questioning moans of the dead as they shambled towards the commotion.
"Move, move that way," Stu ordered, heading in the direction of their original plan.
The others sprang to their feet and began to follow as the howls and wails of the dead broke out all around them.
Stu sprinted, his eyes locked to his front and his weapon tucked in against his hip, the muzzle pointing directly ahead of him, ready to open up on anything that appeared in his path. His footsteps seemed loud in his ears, even against the backdrop of the moans that appeared to be rising in volume and tempo on all sides.
