“Very well, but just for the record, Penny, we wouldn’t have done that to you.”
“How do you know we wouldn’t have done it to you?” Jules said.
That one stumped me. I hadn’t given it a thought.
“OK. In that case, we’ll talk here.”
“So, what’s the problem, Frank?”
“The problem is, Penny, we can’t go to Newbury.”
IX0X0X0X0X0X0XI
“Because,” I said, in answer to the chorus of why’s from the front. “Even if any of your family survived which, judging by what I’ve seen so far, is unlikely, then the chances are they will either be surrounded by a mob like you were or they will have left.”
The picture in my mind was of the house, like mine, ten deep with Zombies. I didn’t like it, but it seemed like it was time for some straight talking. Maybe Jezza was rubbing off on me.
“Surely, it can’t hurt to go check though?” Katie said in a voice that was verging on the whiny.
“Look, Katie. We could go, but the risk would be immense. The chances are that we would get caught up in a big crowd of the things, and a couple of shotguns, a couple of swords, some kitchen implements, and a baseball bat are hardly the sort of arsenal we would need to get through that kind of a horde?”
“But—”
“OK. Look,” I said. “Does anyone else have family they think we should try and find?”
Jean shook her head. Childless, divorced, and orphaned when she was a teenager, I thought she would be a safe bet as a ‘no’.
“Nobody for me,” Brian said with his eyes still closed, “and I’m with Frank. We should get somewhere safe as soon as possible.”
I didn’t bother looking at Jezza. He hated Father even more than I did. Mother had always been a distant figure too. If we’d been born on some council estate, we’d have probably been taken into care, the way those two neglected us. The fact that they employed nannie’s and sent us to a boarding school they couldn’t afford gives an accurate impression of the way we were regarded.
“Jules, what about you?” I asked.
“No, nobody for me,” she replied.
“What about your step-mum and dad?” Penny jabbed her in the ribs with an elbow.
“She’s not my mum and he can rot in hell after what … no, no one for me.”
I assumed she had thought better about telling her story in front of strangers.
“My parents were in Austria. Hiking in the Salzkammergut, wherever that is. Do you think they’ll have made it?” Penny said.
I shrugged. There was no way of knowing but also no way for them to get back. The transport system had been almost the first thing to break down apparently. First all flights had been banned, then all travel on public transport. There was talk of a ban on any kind of travel but with no authorities any more I couldn’t imagine that was still viable.
“They’re fucked, aren’t they?” Penny said with a certain insightful clarity.
Jean tutted but said nothing.
Penny apologised to her and Jean nodded her acceptance.
I just nodded my agreement. There seemed little point denying the accuracy of her statement.
Jezza jumped in. “So, Katie is the only one of us who has people they want to find? I think we should go.”
He was a sneaky little bastard. He would say anything as long as it directly contradicted what I’d said.
Holding up both hands, palms out, in surrender, and with the desire to get on the move again I said, “OK, OK. Let’s take a vote. Those of us who think we should go find Katie’s family, hold up your hand.” I was hoping that at least four of us had the common sense to say no.
***
“So where in Newbury do your folks live, Katie?” I asked as we trundled along the little back road that ran away from Lanchcombe and the only home I’d really known my entire life.
“On the Andover Road. Well, just off it.”
I knew Newbury a little, having visited it several times over the years, but I knew nothing outside of the town centre.
“Is there a map book in here anywhere, Penny?”
“No, sorry. SatNav these days, Frank, old boy,” she said to sniggers from the other two girls and Jezza.
“Yes, very good. Look, we need a map. Are there are any garages around here?”
Shrugs were the only reply. Then Katie jumped. “My dad’s got road maps.” She turned around looking pleased with herself.
“They’re not a lot of good to us now though are they, dear?” Jean said, very politely I thought.
“Oh, yeah,” Katie said and turned back around with what looked suspiciously like a huff.
“When you get to the main Hungerford road, turn toward Kintbury.” Everybody stared at Brian and his uttering. “He opened his eyes, proving he wasn’t talking in his sleep at least. “We need to stay away from towns and villages, so we want to stick to the back roads, OK?”
I saw Penny nodding as the old crate trundled along the road.
“Do you know where you’re going, Brian?” Jezza asked.
“Yep. I was brought up in Newbury and spent most of every summer cycling the back roads. It’s been a while, but I don’t suppose they’ll have changed much.”
“Excellent, you heard the man, Penny.”
Two minutes later the horsebox slowed, and I felt it swing around, before Penny got it moving a little quicker than before on a wider road.
Brian jumped up and stood behind Penny and for the next two hours took us on what was a dizzying series of twists and turns along minor roads and lanes. Most of the time it was through open country either side of the hedgerows with just an occasional house or in some cases a small group of houses that didn’t really qualify as a hamlet, never mind a village.
In all that time we didn’t see one other vehicle on the move and only a couple that were blocking the road ahead. We soon got them shifted into the ditch and manoeuvred past.
Then we reached the first more substantial settlement. A place I think was called Ball Hill or some such name. It was one of those infuriating villages that seems to go forever.
Other than a few stray wanderers, this was the first place we went through that had quantities, worrying quantities of the undead mooching about.
The numbers were probably fewer than fifty, but it was the fact of actually seeing so many, even outside of Newbury that started to make me wish I’d put my foot down and said no a little more firmly.
So far, my somewhat laid-back leadership style was getting us into more trouble than it was getting us out of.
I wasn’t even sure I was the leader, and, in all honesty, it wouldn’t have bothered me if Brian decided he wanted to assume that heady mantle. He was already proving to be capable, at least here, where he knew the lay of the land so to speak.
“Stop,” he yelled. We had just hit the first group of houses and at a junction ahead a crowd of fifty undead were milling around aimlessly, or at least they were until they heard the horsebox. At that point, every last grisly one of them snapped their heads around in our direction and began to head our way. Their stumbling gait and the rough ground slowed them down until they got onto the road. Then they started to stream toward us.
I hadn’t really given it much thought until then, but I was absolutely shit-scared of the bloody things. If you blocked off their faces, most of them were reasonably well dressed. This was an affluent part of the country and my guess, not knowing the area that well, was that this was a dormitory village for Newbury. Big houses for the chief executives and directors, that sort of place, all networking and keeping your lawns mowed. Some of their clothes had the odd rip, especially where they had been bitten but from a distance, they could have been mistaken for an outing of the local parish council.
Once the heads came into the equation, they became snarling, salivating, pustular, vicious animals, worse than the biggest dog. At least with a dog you can train it not to bite. With the undead, it was their driving force.
That scared me rigid. Especially knowing the end result of being bitten.
“What do we do?” Jean yelled from the back.
Brian shushed her. “I want to see what they do. Switch off the engine Penny and everyone get into the back here out of sight. Don’t forget the keys and lock the doors.”
A minute later and after a scramble over the seats at the front we were all safely ensconced in the living section.
Brian spoke quietly. “No sound, no movement.”
The rest of us nodded quietly.
Brian crept forward, so he could peek through the gap between the headrests to see what they did. As soon as the engine had stopped, I’d noticed that the group started to spread out, arms out, fingers clawed.
I slowly crept up to join him.
“What are you thinking?” I asked him in a harsh whisper.
“Frank. Just speak but really quietly, whispers sound more than low speech, OK?” I nodded. “I want to see what they do. I’m hoping they’ll just walk straight past if they think no one is in here. We know nothing about how they see us; if they see us even. Do they smell us? See heat? Who knows? Once we know a bit more about what they do, we will have more of an idea how to deal with them.”
“Know your enemy,” I said.
He flipped a hand, “A bit quieter than that. Go on.”
I crept back into the living quarters and sat in silence with my back to the side of the horsebox.
After a couple of minutes, Brian sat, turning to lean back on the seats. “Everyone real quiet now. No noise. They’ll be here in ten seconds. Jean? You, OK.”
Jean had her hand over her mouth and was staring between her feet. She briefly looked up and nodded but she looked terrified.
Penny was sitting, back straight as a ramrod, her face seemed unconcerned but occasionally a frightened twitch of an eyebrow gave her away.
Jules was holding on to Jean’s arm, looking like she was saying a prayer.
Katie had the baseball bat in both hands, resting across her knees, ready and alert.
“Ready?” Brian said, low and quiet.
Jezza wasn’t looking at Brian but nodded anyway.
We shared a look and a knowing smile.
All we could hear was the ticking of the engine cooling and the sound of groans approaching slowly.
It seemed to take forever but eventually the horse box rocked slightly, and a pair of hands banged on the side of the vehicle.
Jean gasped in fright as did Jules, although I think she might have been reacting to Jean. Neither cried out. Everyone else lifted their heads for a moment; alert, ready to fight, but as the sound of banging continued along the sides of the horsebox and nothing else happened, everyone’s heads dropped again to that spot between their feet.
It was Brian who heard the sound first. I saw him lift his head, turning it slightly from side to side trying to place a location. Then I heard it. A rumbling in the distance, muffled for sure by us all being inside, but definitely approaching.
I looked at Brian and mouthed. “What is it?”
He shrugged and twisted round to peek around the seats again.
One by one the rest of our little group lifted their heads as the sound grew nearer.
“Zombies are going towards the other sound now,” Brian said in a slightly louder voice, then ducked down. “Shit.”
“What’s the matter?” I said.
“One of them heard me,” he said, back to the quiet voice. He put a finger across his lips.
I assume the Zombie in question decided to concentrate on the louder noise because in thirty seconds, the source of it became apparent.
Rumbling down one of the side roads came a tractor. A tractor, with a great, big, solid metal, Zombie thwarting, digger bucket on the front. It already looked a heck of a mess, coated in blood and gore as I saw when I looked out again, watching closely as it approached us.
When it pulled up, the woman driving it made the sign for Brian, who had now leapt into the driver’s seat, to wind down the window.
I looked around to see everyone else straining to get a look at the new arrival.
She opened her own window to the sound of some kind of very loud rock music playing in her cab.
“Sorry,” she said. “Queen. Greatest Hits.” She didn’t make any further explanation and frankly, I don’t think we needed one. Her cab, her music.
“How you doing?” Brian said.
“Alright, ta. Bet you lot wish you had one of these little beauties don’t you.” She leaned forward and patted what I assumed was the dashboard, or whatever passes for a dashboard in a tractor.
“Looks like you’ve been busy already,” Brian said, nodding toward the various body parts and lumps of flesh that were sliding slowly down the cab, leaving bloody streaks behind. I’m sure I saw at least two eyes, complete with optic nerves, splatted on the screen. Next time I looked they were gone so I must either have imagined it, or they slipped off.
The Zombies were starting to accumulate around the passenger side of the horsebox by that point, as well as working their way around the tractor on the driver’s side.
I jumped in the front with Brian and made sure the passenger door was still locked. All I could see close up were Zombie hands clawing at the glass, smearing blood, and whatever other disgusting body fluids they had on them all over, making the view out blurred and grubby.
“Alright?” The tractor woman said.
“Very well, thank you. And yourself?”
“Oh my,” she said, cackling like some wart-nosed witch. “Aren’t you just the posh one?” The mock posh accent she put on was funny in itself, spoken with a broad local twang.
Jezza groaned behind me. I groaned inwardly. It’s no good. I’m going to have to learn to speak more common, I thought to myself.
Jezza could teach me.
“I’m alright, really, don’t mind me.”
“Do you mind if I ask where you were going?”
“Well, strange as it may seem, I was coming to get you.” She had to speak loudly to be heard over her engine and fifty undead monsters growling and grunting as they tried to pull the bits of the horsebox they could reach to pieces.
“Well that’s awfully kind of you but we are heading into town.”
“Not in that you won’t be.” She pointed at the horsebox further along the side of it. Like a monkey at a safari park, some little shit of a Zombie had squeezed his fingers in and was pulling the coachworks of the body off the horsebox, opening it up like a can of sardines.
“Hang on a sec,” she said. She revved up the engine of her tractor and moved it forward a couple of feet. Then she fiddled around inside and raised the digger at the front about ten feet in the air. More fiddling and the bucket I believe they are called, dropped onto the head of the dextrous Zombie, splattering its head and its contents all up the side of the horsebox.
She backed up again, casually running over the half dozen Zombies that had moved into the space she had vacated. Then she operated the backhoe. She set it up so the shovel part was at head height, and swung it around in a large arc, swiping at the heads of about another twenty of the Zombies.
In a matter of seconds, she had decapitated or crushed at least half of the undead who were there. The trouble was, Zombies being persistent little buggers, the ones who didn’t get knocked over like bowling pins, trampled over their comrades and started pressing against her cab and the side of the horsebox again.
I came to the conclusion then that not only do Zombies look and smell revolting, they are also immensely stupid.
“Look,” the woman said. “If you want to get into town you need one of these things. Come back to the farm. It’s safe there. I’ve got solid five-foot walls all around it. The only weak spot is the gate and when this old beauty is parked in the way, they can’t get through … mostly anyway.”
“How many of you are there?” Brian asked.
“Just me my darlin’. Reckon you could ma
nage that do you.”
I could hear the smile in Brian’s voice as he replied.
“Oh, I reckon I could,” Brian said
“I might you hold you to that.”
“You can hold me to anything you like, sweetheart.”
I couldn’t believe Brian was flirting! The woman in the cab was, I suppose, quite comely. A few years younger than me. Short brown hair under a green cap with a picture of a tractor on it. Ruddy complexion as might be expected, and the little I could see of her seemed in good order. Her forearms, showing because of the rolled-up sleeves of her overalls, were evidently muscled and tanned. All in all, she seemed like a nice person. I risked a smile at her from my position on the passenger seat and the smile she had been showing, broad and displaying good teeth suddenly disappeared. A grimace replaced it and she crumpled her eyebrows.
“Is your friend alright?”
Brian turned to look at me, still smiling, although I had no idea why.
“Oh, yeah he’s OK. Constipation. He’s a martyr to his bowels.”
I could hear the tinkling giggles going around the people behind me, but I didn’t mind. Now I realised what put women off. I looked like I was about to shit myself when I smiled.
Now I knew, I could do something about it. Who said the Zombie apocalypse was a complete disaster?
The lady in the tractor flipped her chin up as if Brian’s explanation made sense.
“I’m Daisy by the way. You lot can introduce yourselves when we get back to the farm. You on for that?”
“Too bloody right,” Penny yelled from the back, before hurdling her way to the front and bodily yanking on Brian until he shifted out of the way. She had the key in the ignition and the engine idling before you could have said wagons roll.
“Righto, love. Let me get turned around and knock a few more of these buggers out of the way then you can follow me.”
She did exactly that, running several over and crushing them enough to put an end to their normal random, arm swaying movements, or smacking them on the head which put an end to them permanently.
By the time she had swung around, she had reduced the twenty or more Zombies that had been left to five and the remainder didn’t look like they had learned anything because they just started to swarm around again, oblivious to the destructive power of the ubiquitous tractor.
The One Percent (Episode 1): The One Percent Page 5
