It's Grim Up North (Book 2): The Island

by Wilkinson, Sean

  The island was on fire. All of it gone. As was Gippa, his lieutenants and his boat. Twenty men dead in the blink of an eye. But so was our home. Darren had known we really couldn’t stay there anymore. Yes, it was safe from the deedaz but we’d eventually have been happened upon by whoever it was who had just lit up the island. That could easily have been us. We’d been sitting on a ticking time bomb. The events that had just unfolded convinced us of that. We just couldn’t have stayed there.

  Darren, of course, had realised this and had shown a red flag to the sleeping bull of a destroyer that was out there. This had been his ultimate plan all along. As soon as he’d witnessed the ruthless destroyer blowing the shit out of anything it detected, he knew we had to leave. No wonder he hadn’t told us what he’d had planned. Everyone one of us would have objected profusely about the destruction of our deeda-proof home. Andy and I looked at each other disbelievingly. Our sanctuary was dust. We were homeless again. That said, we had just rid the world of twenty evil men. Men who had committed terrible and unforgivable crimes against the weak and helpless. The punishment they’d received was deserved and just. Though a little too quick for my liking, but I couldn’t help the smile that appeared when the smoke started to clear and the blackened and charred corpses of those poor excuses of men could be seen littering the beach.

  Surprisingly, Darren didn’t look as overjoyed as I thought he would. His plan had come to fruition but I had an inkling as to why this was. It meant that the people on the destroyer were not pirates after all. Pirates would not waste munitions in that way.

  ‘What are you thinking Darren?’ I asked, finding it hard to hear my own words. The noise from the explosion having most likely damaged my hearing somewhat. Darren was obviously unaffected in the hearing department and answered me swiftly. I lip read most of his reply.

  ‘I’m thinking, we’re on our own. This is a quarantine zone and those fuckers don’t want anyone leaving the party. I didn’t see any drones so they’re obviously using a satellite feed to watch the coast, and when the explosion was picked up they’d have zoomed in and clocked Gippa and his marras,’ he explained, then turned and pulled the starter cable on the outboard. ‘Anyway, that’s something for us to talk about later. We’ve got to move now ladies. Every stinka for miles will have heard that. We’ve got to go and get Bobby and those prisoners. It’s now or never.’ He powered up the boat and tore south along the coast.

  Chapter 39

  While we bounced on the surf towards our destination, I couldn’t help but think of what would have happened if the missile hadn’t been sent. Did Darren have a plan for that? Had he put all his eggs in one basket after all, and gambled with our lives? I made a note to myself to ask him when we were alone, for I feared what the answer would be. To be fair, I’d have been fine with the gamble. It was worth the end result. Andy, on the other hand would be none too pleased that Darren had been making wagers with his daughter’s life.

  After a few minutes we passed twenty or so bodies scattered on the sand, marking the area we’d moored up at on the night before. Surprisingly, the dead that ‘survived’ Darren’s shots from our escapades on the beach were nowhere to be seen and had shuffled off. To where, was anyone’s guess.

  Darren held the throttle and kept on going and after travelling for half a mile, he slowed, turned the boat towards the beach and floored it. He cut the engine at the last moment and tilted the motor forward on the transom so the propellers didn’t catch on the seabed. We came to a stop on the sand and climbed out.

  He’d chosen this point because of the lack of proximity to the caravan site – he didn’t fancy another reunion with the dead tourists.

  The closest village south of Amble with a large population was over eight miles away to the south, so hopefully the explosion wasn’t heard by the residents there and deeda traffic coming from that direction along the beach road would be minimal. There was a tiny village called Hauxley a couple of miles south which consisted of a few houses and a handful of beach cabins, so deedaz coming from there weren’t too much of a concern.

  Again we climbed the dunes and scoped out the area. In the distance, down the road to our right, was the caravan site. I used the magic scope and could see that the deeda holiday makers that Darren wanted to avoid seemed to have gravitated back to their holiday complex for some reason. They were now moving, like moths to a flame, towards the large smoke stack that was once our home and refuge.

  I turned my attention to our left and spotted three deedaz, half a mile away to the south, coming down the road that led to Hauxley. We’d have to wait until they passed before we could cross the road, as we’d be seen by them if we tried. At the pace they were travelling it would take them around twenty minutes to pass us and then get to a safe enough distance from us so we could cross the road without being seen.

  Darren was having none of this and told me to quickly re-thread some dry dune grass into the loops on his ghillie suit. Once completed he then told us to wait where we were and then proceeded to sprint south, along the top of the sand dunes perpendicular to the road. He stopped about 25 metres before coming in line with the three dead, then slithered on his stomach down the back of the dunes to the road. I kept my eye on him this time but it was still difficult to keep track of him when he was in ghost mode.

  Once at the edge of the road he very carefully and slowly stood up, his arms going out to the side mimicking the branches of a tree. In his hands were Odin’s hammers.

  ‘What the fuck is he doing?’ Andy muttered. ‘They’re never going to fall for that shit.’

  Andy was right. On seeing the apparition lazily grow in front of them, the three shambling deedaz quickened their pace and homed in on Darren. Although, to my astonishment, the moaning that usually came from their shrivelled and withdrawn lips when they spotted prey, never came. They seemed puzzled by him, if anything.

  As they approached, Darren didn’t move. Not an inch. How he managed this, I’ll never know. A single bite or scratch from any one of them would definitely fuck up your day, but there he was, cool, calm and collected. Standing mere inches away from three curious, ravenous ghouls.

  Instead of the free for all gore fest I’d expected, the dead just stood around him sniffing.

  The decaying scent of rotting leaves, soil and shit that the gyhllie suit radiated was disguising Darren’s natural scent. His ploy was actually working. The dead, not recognising the tree-shaped man as human were well and truly stumped. Darren moved, and in a flash the three deedaz lay at his feet.

  He looked up at our position and beckoned us down to the road.

  Chapter 40

  Weighed down with all the rucksacks we ungracefully descended the dune and by the time we arrived at the road, Darren had run back to meet us. We crossed the road and practically fell over the wall into the farmer’s field. As Andy, Josh and I caught our breath, Darren urged us to our feet.

  ‘We’ve got to move guys. This whole area is going to be stinka central soon.’

  Now, the most advantageous trait of the dead was their habit of taking the path of least resistance. This meant that fence-enclosed fields rarely had dead in them. They would climb over obstacles to get to or follow visible prey but seemed to prefer manmade and natural pathways when migrating out of curiosity. The downside for us was the difficulty, navigating the ploughed and untended, overgrown fields. Especially while being weighed down with all the new equipment and weapons. Each of us had two heavy rucksacks to carry and our SA80s. Darren and I also had to carry our sniper cases, so it took us double the time to get to the sewage works than it had the night before.

  ‘It was only the night before?’ I asked myself. It felt like an eternity ago. So much had happened since then.

  We snipped the cable ties that Darren had replaced before we’d left and squeezed through, leaving the fence open this time. Before climbing the ladder, we took off our rucksacks and left them there, only taking Bessy, our SA80 assault rifles and our side a
rms when we climbed up.

  It was early evening by the time we moved into position at the top of the building and the sun was beginning its descent to the horizon in the west.

  Darren shepherded me into the shadow of the stairwell shed again and positioned Josh and Andy to stand behind it, guns out, to watch our backs.

  Darren took off his ghillie suit, woke Bessy from her nap and scoped the compound. As expected, the men Gippa had left behind to guard the place were on high alert. Even more so after the fireworks they’d obviously witnessed when the island disappeared. The guard towers at the corners of the compound now had two men occupying each of them. A further two soldiers each guarded one of the two entrances into the modern-day fortress. We weren’t sure whether Gippa’s two other lieutenants were amongst these men or lay dead back at the island. Josh told us the lieutenants were ‘bigguns’. Not as big as the twins, but big enough. We’d seen no one who matched their descriptions so they were still unaccounted for, as was the fucking rat, Damien.

  Chapter 41

  Darren laid out his plan for dealing with the men in the compound.

  Josh would be pivotal to this plan, but we all had a part to play.

  I watched through Bessy’s scope as Josh walked behind Darren with his SA80 assault rifle pointed at his back. Darren had his hands up and behind his head as Josh roughly pushed him with the muzzle of the gun towards the south-west guard tower of the compound. Andy had been sent to a petrol station that was situated at the entrance of the industrial estate and told to wait for my signal.

  The guards on the watch tower quickly spotted Josh and his ‘prisoner’. This was Josh’s big moment. We’d find out soon whether we could trust him or not. Again, Darren did, so that was good enough for me.

  The compound turned into a flurry of activity. The two missing lieutenants made an appearance too, and following close behind them was Damien. From my vantage point he looked rather nervous and skittish about the situation he was in.

  The guard in the tower started shouting down to Josh and Darren. What was said was a mystery, but it seemed like they were telling Josh to drop his weapon. Josh had been told to say that it was too dangerous to take the weapon aimed at Darren off him. That the man he’d captured had killed Sonny and wasn’t to be trifled with.

  One of the two guards on the watch tower must have recognised Josh and waved him around to the main gate. The lieutenants walked to the gate to greet them after the guard who waved them round shouted down to tell them what was happening. I lost sight of Darren and Josh as they turned the corner to the main gate, but could see the lieutenants waiting on the inside of the compound, next to the gate, in anticipation of their new prisoner’s arrival. The gate opened and Josh roughly pushed Darren through it. It was time.

  Chapter 41

  I picked up a LED flashlight, pointed it towards Andy at the petrol station and turned it on and off three times. The guards at the towers didn’t see the signal as they had forgotten about their duties and were all turned in towards the compound to see the man who had actually killed one of the Cooper boys.

  Andy signalled back once and then he was gone. I spotted him again, ten seconds later, running from the garage like a bat out of hell. Then BOOM!!! The petrol station went up. The grenade Andy had dropped into the fuel storage silo beneath the station had done the job.

  Now, this was the part of the plan that could go two ways. One of them really bad. Bad as in the fuckers out at sea may send one of their flying boom sticks. Darren had bet they wouldn’t. Explosions and fires on the mainland had been a common occurrence in the early days, so he’d put all his money on this explosion being overlooked and that the occupants of the destroyer were only interested in happenings on the coast.

  As the fuel tank of the station went up, the guards in the compound turned towards it and covered their eyes. Darren struck like a coiled viper. That was my queue. The lookouts in both guard towers, furthest from the explosion on the east side of the compound, were mine. All fucking four of them. Darren had given me a pep talk before he left.

  ‘Remember what I told you. Exhale and squeeze. Let the gun surprise you when it fires. Aim for the head of the closest guard. With a bit of luck his buddy may be standing directly behind him. If that’s the case then one bullet may kill the both of them. Don’t expect that to happen though. If his buddy doesn’t go down, leave him. He’ll be too busy wiping brains off his face to be a worry. Aim for the next guard tower and take them out.’

  The backs of the north-facing guard towers on the far side of the compound were exposed from my vantage point. The guards would still be staring at the explosion and hopefully wouldn’t have heard Bessy speak until it was too late.

  Darren unsheathed the twenty-four-inch bolo machete he had hidden down the neck of his jacket. Yes, the old pretending to surrender and then whipping a big fucking knife from the back of your head ploy had actually fucking worked! Darren sliced through both of lieutenants’ throats in one swift swipe as Josh opened up on the other guard towers. At the same time, I lined up my sights and prepared to take the life of the first guard on my hit list. I pulled the trigger. Again, time slowed down for me as the bullet left the rifle. I was about to take the life of another human being. A living, breathing person. In that split-second I realised, if what Josh said was true, these men guarding the compound were doing so out of necessity. For survival. Would I have done the same in their position? Would I have stood guard, while the hierarchy took advantage of the defenceless women? I knew for a fact I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I’d have ended up like Josh and Damien’s very brave and proud parents.

  These guards chose the other option. To turn a blind eye. To bend the knee to evil men. To surrender, capitulate and concede to their morals. They chose to save their own pitiful lives at the expense of others. They deserved what was coming.

  The bullet flew straight and true, literally taking the head off the target. Unluckily, the bullet didn’t take out his friend standing behind, but luckily the momentum of bullet knocked the dead soldier backwards, crashing into him and taking him over the edge, dropping him to the ground.

  In a flash I’d zeroed in on my next targets, who upon recovering from the blinding flash of the petrol station had seen Darren doing his Bruce Willis, Die Hard shit on the two lieutenants. They’d already started bringing their weapons up towards Darren and Josh.

  Darren had set the scope so that my first target was the easiest shot. The next two shots were slightly harder with them being further away. There was no wind to speak of, but from this distance gravity would start having an effect on any bullet I threw their way.

  ‘Aim slightly above their heads,’ were Darren’s final words before he left.

  I aimed slightly above the head of my first target and fired. The shot was straight and true but was a tad low and hit the man in the shoulder. Not an immediate killing shot but it definitely took him out of the game. By the time I aimed at my next target he was already firing his weapon into the compound. Before I could blow the fucker’s head off someone else did it for me. It was Darren. He’d dropped his half sword, quick-drawn his Glock 17 from the base of Josh’s back and double tapped him.

  I quickly scoped the other guard towers on the west side. Josh had taken two of them down. One of the two survivors was standing up and firing from the hip, Rambo style. Again, before I could get a shot off Darren had plugged him cool, calm and collectedly while bullets hit the ground around him. Firing from the hip, as I learned later from Darren, is only used by movie stars and the Taliban and not being hit by a bullet by someone using this method had nothing to do with luck, but lack of accuracy.

  The remaining survivor who’d just witnessed the slaughter of his fellow comrades tried to escape by leaping down from the tower to the outside of the compound. He landed awkwardly and limped away. He didn’t get far. Andy saw to that and blasted him in the chest with his sawn-off shotgun as he was sprinting towards the compound and hopefully to his unharm
ed daughter. I received the all-clear signal from Darren and made my way to him. The assault took less than twenty seconds from explosion to final shot, but the noise we made from the gunfire, let alone the huge explosion of the petrol station, would surely attract all of the deedaz in the local area to us. Especially the ones who’d been drawn to the destruction of the island. Time was precious and our leader had guesstimated that we had thirty minutes to free the girls, find a vehicle and pop over to the sewage works to pick up our kit. I climbed down the ladders leaving Bessy next to our supplies, grabbed my SA80 and legged it to the compound. On arriving I heard people arguing. As I entered the sacked fortress the first thing I saw was Bobby. She was in an embrace with her father who was in a very heated exchange with Darren.

  Chapter 42

  ‘Kill the little fuckers!’ Andy screamed as he stared at the prisoners. ‘Especially that ferret-faced bastard,’ he added, pointing at Damien, who was on his knees in front of Darren, again, in a puddle of his own piss. Two other men occupied the space on each side of Damien. They were the gate guards who, by all accounts, had surrendered pretty much as soon as the explosion had happened and when Darren and Josh had unleashed hell on the unsuspecting defenders.

  Bobby had come running out of the central house after Gippa’s wife had untied her when the party started. This part had me startled. Had Ivan the Terrible’s wife turned over a new leaf or had she thought that by freeing Bobby she would experience our good graces and receive leniency?

  ‘They surrendered Andy,’ Darren shouted. ‘If they’d tried to escape or had fired upon us then that would have been a different matter. We can’t just kill unarmed prisoners in cold blood. ‘

  My mind flashed back to the night before when Darren had plunged his knife into Adam’s throat. He had been unarmed. He had also been threatening Bobby and our group. Plus, he was a soldier, which meant he’d most definitely committed heinous crimes against other survivors of the apocalypse.