The Pestilence Collection [Books 1-3]

by Rob Cockerill

  Upon opening the gates, she launched into an almost uncontrollable bear hug, wrapping her arms around him and nestling her weary head into the chest of his typical blank hoodie. He held her just as tight and beamed a nervous smile as our exchange/words just seconds before dawned on him.

  "Are you, –––––?"

  "Yes," Jenny interrupted, and reburied her head in his arms.

  I couldn't help but be overcome with the warmest of feelings as Jack ushered me in for the embrace and the three of us shared the kind of uplifting, intimate moment that you seldom experience in the apocalypse. But that beautiful moment was short-lived. It must have lasted a whole 30 seconds. Excited relief gave way to panicked inquiry as Jenny registered what I had spotted mere seconds before her – Jack was seemingly alone in his arrival at the base. He stood there isolated and vulnerable, with no sign of any others – no sign of the children. He wouldn't speak of Lucinda. His only words were, "She's gone, and I'm not going to talk about it." That was it. As for the children, he did explain that they were fine, but he would need help bringing them up to the base.

  They had all found themselves cornered as they stomped through the woods at first light this morning, and Jack had little choice but to send each one of them up trees to safety, sitting high atop the ground on sturdy branches. As the eldest and at 13 years of age, Nicole (Nic) was in a tree on her own watching out for the much younger Tamara (Tam) and Riley, who huddled together in the next tree along. Jack had climbed up to whisper assurance in the ear of each, give them a longing kiss, and tell them he would be back shortly. He couldn’t marshal them all through safely, not against a double-digit flock of the undead – and certainly not with the deep wound he had already sustained to his left leg that slowed him so.

  Sensing he wasn’t far from the base, he made light work of a couple of cadavers, evaded two others, and essentially led the others away from the children as they followed his scent toward the site. Cue, our long lost embrace. Within minutes of learning this ourselves, Jenny sat herself securely in the 4X4 by the gates, and I followed Jack out through the woodland to the children – to bring them up one at a time. With my chain weaponry in tow, we had already taken out a dozen corpses before we had even reached Riley. As the youngest, he was the first to be escorted in through the gates by the waiting Jenny.

  After two more runs through the wooded battleground, we had slain more than 20 zombies and all three children reunited with Jenny and safely settled in the base for hot chocolate, instant sachets of which we had been saving for the right moment; this was the only right moment, having the kids together, warm and snuggled here with us.

  By nightfall we had recovered everyone and retreated inside the living quarters to spend our first night of the pestilence together, including Alice, a friend they had picked up along the way. Alice had endured a torrid time herself since the outbreak began, losing everyone close to her and opting to take her chances as a moving target out on the road. She had somehow come to meet Jack, Nic, Tam, and Riley along the way in the woodland – post-Lucinda – and they had all clung to each other ever since.

  Jack said that Alice had proven endearing to both himself and, most importantly, the children alike over their days and weeks together – forging an invaluable bond with the troubled Nic in particular, as she struggled to cope with the sudden and premature loss of her mother. We could already see the love they have for her throughout the course of that evening alone.

  And so, we spent the night together in our modest, but resilient base abode. Against all odds we are reunited, finally. Jack said he has not seen the children sleep so deeply since this shit storm began; such is the relative security of the building and the site as a whole, they slept right through from 11pm to 8:30am. We spent today together, not rushing to do anything in particular, just enjoying this unforeseen time as one and indulging in some emotional restoration. Jack and I made a point of familiarising him with the base and every nuance of it, from blind spots and exposed fencing to the raised beds and radar station, while Jenny sat her siblings down and shared the news of their impending niece or nephew.

  It's been a crazy, traumatic and encapsulating-all-at-once couple of days. There's no sign of the undead that are surely marauding our way as I write this. But Jack and I know that we have work to do tomorrow to shore things up even further and ready ourselves for potential besiegement. He saw the flare too and wondered – hoped perhaps – if it was us; now he knows it wasn't, we're in agreement that we need to not only prepare the grounds for lockdown, but get our mindset straight too.

  We're lucky that we're not swamped with hungered cadavers already – it's surely only a matter of time. We don't know if we should expect 20 or 120, or more. We don't even know if we should expect any at all. Jack, Jenny and I are clearly assuming the worst, when there may be nothing to worry about. But we can't take any chances; reunions or not, 2016 simply isn't forgiving like that.

  9th May 2016

  Dear diary

  So today has been a day of tedious chores, of small and almost insignificant tasks around the site that should help to keep us safe in the event of emergency. Should, being the word. They were tiresome, yet hugely rewarding at the same time – there was good sense of productivity by the time we turned in for ‘together time’ and something to eat this evening. The light was just fading, and we had been hard at work all day working up a sweat; that was a satisfying feeling.

  Jack and I even built our very own take on an Anderson shelter in the large patches of grassy knolls within the base. We took one of those very same mounds that Jenny and I had dug out when we first arrived here, then with the intention of it becoming a zombie pit in if we found ourselves under mass attack, and dug it out even further for a couple of hours. Scavenging props and crutches for the load, we built in a pallet-based roof and door and shored it up as much as we could before calling it day. Every couple of days we will replenish the bottles of water it houses, and check the torches for battery life. Let’s hope no-one ever has to use it; it would not offer shelter for long and would hardly pass any conventional safety tests, but if the base is compromised and anyone is stuck for a solution in the field of battle, it might allow them a few hours of hiding until they can find a path to freedom.

  But, as it write this at around 9pm, it feels as though the hard work is just beginning. Jack gave an ominous speech an hour or so ago, largely for my benefit but loud enough to strike fear and anticipation into all of us.

  “You've had it good up here, you did a good job and you kept the two of you safe. I respect that. And maybe, there's a chance that together we can keep us all safe up here for a long time yet. But I've got a bad feeling about that flare. I've got a bad feeling about what's coming. If there's anything at all we need to do, anything we need to get, I think we do it now. We do it now.”

  Those were his words – his exact words. I remember them word perfect. We had been ruefully discussing the fact that there was a stack of food and longer-term provisions back at our apartment, but we had about a 2% chance of getting there and back in one piece. In fact, I think those were my words. We’d also mentioned all of the people we encountered in the church – and the bounty of blankets, rugs and foodstuffs they had too. Waiting until the children had fallen asleep, Jenny and I even showed Jack and Alice the scenes on the surveillance cameras, emphasising the lack of clear opportunity to venture back into Porthreth village.

  But Jack seemed more fired up than anything, and the conversation soon turned from one of regret to seizing the day. And so we are, I think…

  Under Jack’s instruction we’ve retired to bed for an early night, and at first light we’re going to put our heads together for the formation of a plan. By early morning, it’s very likely we’ll be donning our backpacks and weapons, and heading out into the woodland. I haven’t said this often, if at all, during this apocalypse, but it’s one of the few times I’m not looking forward to waking up tomorrow. Most nights, you count as fortuna
te to have made it through the day and hope to wake up to see another; tonight I fear the morning rolling around again. I don’t want to do it, and I fear we’re leaving the base – and our family – vulnerable to an onslaught. But it’s that very same onslaught that’s driving Jack to this decision.

  Jenny's not comfortable with any of it. She thinks it's all unnecessary risk and keeps bringing up those longstanding concerns she has over whether our 2016, our future, belongs up here anyway. Upon that plethora of thoughts and anxieties, we are expected to sleep. It’s going to be a long night.

  10th May 2016

  Here it is, D-Day. With Jenny and Alice keeping the kids firmly inside the building, in the highest point in the base, the observatory, Jack and I have resolved to head out on two nerve-wracking missions.

  First, to secure a number of blackout blinds and other goods from Jack's abandoned VW van (he very astutely took them when they set off in the road to use each night when they parked up somewhere to mask their presence) and second, to the school to scrounge together as much food and supplies as we might need for a while. If successful, we may even chance our arms at a visit to our old apartment. But, I fear it could literally be chancing our arms, with the hive of corpses activity we’ve studied on the cameras.

  I refrained from using the term ‘last goodbyes’ but we both dedicated some time this morning to our loved ones and seemingly telling them everything we ever wanted to say to them. I was certainly succumbing to that emotion far more than Jack; he wouldn’t show it even if he was feeling it. But there was definitely a shared sentiment of overwhelming fear and remorse, almost. I could tell Jenny and our baba bump a thousand times this morning how much I love them both, and it still wouldn’t be enough. Unfortunately for us, it has to be.

  With daunting thoughts and a sinking feeling, I post this entry and shut down the laptop for another day, reader. I hope I’ll be connecting with you again in the next few days. If you’re out there surviving too, don’t give up the fight. Stay strong.

  15th May 2016

  I'm back, and I don't think I've been as pleased to be in the bosom of the base's imprisonment since the day we first arrived here.

  We finally returned a couple of days ago. Jack and I had been on the road together for almost two days; two bloody, brutal and breaking days for the both of us. Despite everything that Jenny and I have been through since mid-January and the gory kills that still vividly haunt me in the dark of the night, I’ve not endured such a violent, grisly 40 hours in my life.

  The urgency of our task and return to the base meant that we couldn't apply the care and consideration we would normally have used in the woodland; we had to pound through the puddles and gullies that still prevailed from April's storms and incessant showers, with the knowledge that every squelch and splash underfoot would be reverberating in the eardrums of the undead like a fatal jungle drum. We would have preferred maximum stealth, but our need to get back to the base and be there for an impending attack compromised our strategy. We had no choice but to hurry and hope for the best.

  We actually made it quite far before our first encounter. The wooden play equipment 'castle' that Jenny and I reluctantly slept in for a few nights was but a stone’s throw away, and Jack's VW Transporter was in sight when our vision suddenly became filled with pained corpses baying for blood. These were angry biters, fierce and foreboding with every snarl and sniff, menacing with each lurch forward, and somehow more ruthless-looking than most others. Perhaps they were hungered; perhaps it was the amount of barren time spent searching for flesh. Whatever it was, they seemed like a hungrier and more aggressive conclave of cadavers, each just as selfish and single-minded in their determination to rip us to shreds for themselves.

  That was the downfall of at least half of the 20-strong pack – they showed an almost human indecision, not able to choose which of our warm, juicy bodies they wanted to puncture and prise open first. That confusion allowed Jack and I to pick the first advancers off, my heavy chain particularly effective in whipping straight through three of them in one hit. Jack nearly despatched two in close combat with his fists and, ultimately, feet alone – delivering crushing blows to the head in a single stamp of his steel toecap clad feet.

  The rest were a lot trickier. Two were able to pin me down before I could whip up enough energy in the chain to give it a good swing. I fell to the ground with a thump, black muddy fluid spraying up in the air and raining back down on me amidst the putrid puss-laden saliva of the two corpses. I was about to be tag-team mutilated alive when Jack literally pulled them both from me and proceeded to take turns in kicking seven shades of shit out of each of them.

  When we were finally rid of frenzied company for a few minutes and could catch our breath, I realised the sorry state that the VW was in. In addition to a flat tyre, and a lack of both fuel and power, it sat there looking pretty beaten throughout the exterior. There were even russet red hand prints strewn down the side of the van, hinting at a desperate, bloody struggle that had taken place.

  Jack looted the VW for the blackout blinds and blankets he had sought before we left, and any other useful items from gloves boxes and compartments, and we trudged away to our next stop – the school. When we arrived there a few hours later after several more near-death experiences and little conversation, it presented us with a haul of goodies to take back with us. From full-blown catering supplies in the canteen kitchen, of both the ‘fresh’ and preserved type, to books and toys and even spare clothes in the lost property box, we filled our heavy-duty rucksacks with as much as we could squeeze in. Those were good moments; Jack even cracked a nervous smile.

  But all was not what it seemed. We disturbed an awry cadaver in the kitchen which proceeded to clatter and clang among an array of discarded pots, pans and utensils and drew unwelcome attention to the building. Jack waded in and put the blood-thirsty attacker out of its misery with a deft punch and blunt dagger combination. We thought the damage was done as a trio of scholarly stiffs furiously fumbled their way toward us down classroom corridors, but there was to be more in store. As we worked our way through the advancing corpses, the bells began ringing out loud above us. My heart definitely skipped a beat before it sank fast and deep as it dawned on me that this could be the end.

  We had found neither sight nor sound of the mystery bell-ringer upon approaching the school, yet we were soon left in doubt about their whereabouts. More to the point, we faced very real questions about our own existence beyond those moments. Why the fuck was he ringing the bells? Why did he get to issue our death warrant? Was it someone we knew? Jack’s usual ice cool, ‘I don’t give a shit’ exterior dropped – I could tell he was just as terrified as me. Our hearts were suddenly in sync as we genuinely feared we would see our family again.

  All we could do was frantically pull the doors shut all around us, barricade ourselves in and hope to ride out the inevitable onslaught of the undead. Within seconds, we could hear a chorus of hungered groaning getting closer and closer. The bells kept ringing ever vociferously and the undead gained in numbers around us. We crouched down below the windows in the reception class and hid. After everything we had been through, after all of the shit we had survived and the sanctuary we had built up, we found ourselves hiding yet again. Juvenile chairs stacked up against the door; we pitifully hid. And that’s how we stayed for the rest of the night, imprisoned and taunted by the sound of the undead beating down on doors, windows and walls all around us. Endless groaning and yearning, relentless thudding and drumming of borrowed time biters beating at the building. As lonely tears rolled down my face and I attempted to hide them from Jack, I began to wonder if it was us that had been surviving on borrowed time.

  By dawn, we sensed a minor relief in corpse attention and an opening to the rear of the building. Snaking our way through the school’s corridors on our stomachs, we slipped under the radar and out of a backdoor out into the playground – and ran for our lives. Even Jack, grimacing through the pain of his
wounded shin, moved through the gears as if his life depended on it, because it did. Once we were safely out of striking distance, we legged up over the fence and bolted back across the litter-ridden road into the woodland. We never did see the bell-end bell-ringer that so nearly left our loved ones without husband or father. And we didn’t waste time looking back, either for him or for a route to the apartment I once shared with Jenny. The village was teeming with savage corpses, more hungered and impatient than ever – there was no way we could have reached the apartment, and I don’t think either of us wanted to try, not really.

  With the attention of Porthreth’s skeletal population focused on the school, the dense woodland was relatively clear and we made firm progress toward the base. Even so, it was still an intolerably long and arduous trek punctuated by pauses for Jack to rest his weary leg. Throughout the day there was no visual sign of the anticipated walkers wandering parallel to us in pursuit of the flare several days earlier, but there was a lot of birds flying overhead as if fleeing or displaced. As we neared the base, there was also a gradually increasing aura of tireless moaning and groaning. We told ourselves that after our panicked exertions, we were likely reading too much into things. But, as we finally made it back safe in the dead of the night – shattered, traumatised and truly drained – we soon realised that we were not.

  There was no time to dine out on the veritable treasure trove of food supplies we brought back, or stare longingly into the eyes of our family we were so relieved to see. The undead had arrived. What army of cadavers wasn’t trained on the school was thrashing and thronging at the perimeter fence, howling and growling throughout the night in angered bloodlust. No-one slept that night, and few of us have really rest since. We’re three days into the unrelenting crowding of the base, and only now have I felt able to take half an hour to pen this epistle to you, reader. Jack, Jenny and I have been marshalling the defences and doing our utmost to keep the children – comforted by Alice – both safe and sane. Long days give way to even longer nights.