“Have we got enough eyes left to watch out for the dead things trying to eat us?”
“Sarcasm still doesn’t suit you, Rick.”
“Yeah well I’ll keep working on it. I think it’s been long enough, shall we see if Jez has actually managed to spot anything?”
“Go and get Matt first. If we don’t trust them, it’s an even better reason not to let them out of our site.”
“Yeah we get it Warren. When are you going to go back to just being the stressed journalist we all knew and loathed?”
“When there are enough alive people in the UK for us to start recirculating newspapers.”
Rick rolled his eyes and went to fetch Matt as Andy and I headed to Jez. I resisted the temptation to smack him on the back of his shaven head and instead patted his shoulder. He jumped out of his skin but bit back his yelp.
“Shi… sorry. You scared me. I was concentrating.”
“Anything?”
“Not a lot to be worried about. There were a couple of dogs running around, or at least they were probably dogs. Maybe foxes, they were quite a ways away. They weren’t near anywhere we need to go so it should be fine.”
“Anything more deadly?”
“No. No people, no zombies. Nothing infected. When can we make the first dash?”
I inched around the corner and eyed up the deserted high street. I pondered out loud “where are all the bodies?”
We pulled back in to the alleyway. “What bodies?” Jez asked.
“You know. The bodies? The apocalypse? I was expecting to see some… well some corpses at least. We’ve only seen one or two in buildings. I mean, I can see blood spatter. At least it’s probably blood. Lots of dark patches on the pavement. But there’s no actual bodies. Don’t you think that’s strange?”
“Did you actually see the middle of Bennington when this all broke out? Or were you hiding in your posh house?”
“My sister’s posh house. And no.”
“I think it’s already been said it was hard and fast. I just think… most people were turned, you know? This is an open space. So people really ran, but some were packed in tight so the infection spread really quickly. Sure lots of people died, but they were already infected right? So they just eventually got up and re-joined the pack. I don’t want to know what the middle of London looks like. But here? It’s not a big town. You’re not going to have corpses litter the street just because that’s what they put in films.”
“Yeah but there’s still got to be what, tens of thousands of people around here on any given day right?”
“In Bennington? Ha, I don’t think so. Sure there’s that many residents, but people in the town? I don’t think it ever gets that busy. You want to survive an apocalypse? Come to a UK seaside resort. You want to see bodies? Go to an enclosed space – nightclubs, pubs, trains, buses, cinemas – anywhere that people couldn’t escape quickly. Those people got devoured.”
Begrudgingly I had to admit that Jez made sense. If this place never got busy then there probably wouldn’t be that many bodies scattered around the place. That wasn’t necessarily reassuring though; he was also right in that practically everyone that got attacked in the town subsequently turned. Whilst some of those might have stayed in the town itself, a large number of them would have also gone home. They would have most likely infected their friends and family and… that’s how these things manage to spread so wide and so fast.
“Okay so no bodies, no disease. That’s not a bad thing. Less animals around to give us unwanted attention. Less smell, too.”
“So where are we going first?”
“Anywhere but the store next to the pharmacy.”
“Light things first, then medium, then heavy. Like you said Warren, we shouldn’t have to be throwing around the heavy stuff at the start of the night. It’ll tire us out.”
Wow. Jez really had been listening. Experiencing his new amiable nature though was simply setting me more on edge than before. He was obviously looking to gain my trust before shoving a knife in my back.
“Okay. Light things. That would be clothing and blankets, which is quite bulky. Seeing as we have more time than we thought, I vote we make the first run and stow everything back here. We can do the heavy run when we want then too. I don’t want to do everything in a set order and then be stopped from going in to certain shops because of unforeseen circumstances.”
“Would we be in danger of overloading?”
“Potentially,” I responded “but I’d rather have too much gear and be able to go through rationalising, then not get enough and go back with bags that aren’t full.”
“That makes sense Warren. I know there’s two or three clothes shops next to two camping stores. They’re at the top end of town though so it’s a risky first stop. What do you think?”
“Democracy not dictatorship. What does everyone think?”
Andy was the only one with reservations. “You sure we can get there without being seen?”
“Well Jez says the town is abandoned. We haven’t seen anything for the last few days and the majority of that swarm is still down on the seafront. As long as we’re careful, we should be fine. We came across a Jumper when we were on the last run so there might be infected in the shops that couldn’t get out when the rest of the zombies went on the move. I don’t think they’re that great at motor functions. Doors definitely confuse them.”
“So be on guard when we go indoors?”
“Just that. This isn’t hard, we just need to be organised. And keep in groups. No going off on our own.”
“Yeah ‘cause the last time that happened we had to save your doomed arse.”
“Ah shut up Rick. I would have handled it.”
“But instead,” Andy hefted his axe again “I did!”
“Yeah okay Gimli.” Jez muttered.
“Right enough fooling around guys. If we were in a film, this is where I’d say ‘let’s put our game faces on’. None of us want to die, and all of us want some decent meals and protective gear to keep us safe for a bit longer. And we definitely want the walky talkies that Austin has sounded out. Ready?”
They all nodded their assent. The hunt was live.
Andy gave us a running commentary as we skittered from wall to wall, avoiding standing in windows and keeping in pools of shadow as much as we could. “The problem we’re going to have is that halfway on the route there’s a square we need to cross.” Duck. Run. Cover. “The swarm can’t see us from there but there’s no safe route, we have to get across it to get to the other side of town. And the same is true on the way back.” Duck. Run. Cover. Check. “So it’s best getting this out of the way, though if you want to do it when it’s light… I hadn’t really considered the square until we actually started heading to it.” Duck. Run. Cover. Check. “Warren?”
“I’m not exactly in love with the idea of sprinting through open spaces in broad daylight. What does everyone else think?”
“It doesn’t matter what we think. You make the decision. Someone has to get used to it – we’re going to be in situations where stopping to have a group debate isn’t really going to be possible.”
“I’ll decide when we get there. I’ve never seen the square so at the moment I’m flying blind.”
Duck. Run. Cover. Check. We were pushed up against a brick front. The doors and windows had long since been smashed through so any egress-challenged undead should have long since departed. I look up at the sign and saw it was a home furnishing store and useless to us. The square was ahead. Because of the time of day the sun was shining directly in to it from the seafront. There was a small bandstand in the centre of the square and five streets leading out from it. The bandstand was the proud owner of our first outdoor corpse. There was a crumpled body in the centre and from the looks of things, it no longer possessed a head. That would explain why it hadn’t got up after death and gone in search of food. I held an arm out to hold the others back and scrutinised each of the five routes. “Andy,
which way are we going?”
“Straight across. See the pub on the corner? The coffee shop on the other side? There.”
“A pub? Didn’t we think those places were makeshift morgues? No automatic doors to let the dead out that’s for sure. Can anyone see anything moving in there?”
Each man took a look in turn, but none of us could see signs of movement. “That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re in the clear” I said “you’ve seen the swarm – they don’t go anywhere unless they get some kind of stimulus. I really don’t want to be the stimulus.”
“Can’t say it was top of my list either to be fair. There should be another route around, but it will take us past other bars. We’re in a town after all.”
“Then we run past this one as quickly as we can. And no noise. Huh sounds easy enough. Well if you guys want me to be the leader I suppose I should go first.”
I went to a crouch to start sprinting when I was yanked back by my trouser line. I looked around in irritation to see Jez retreating back and pressing the others with him. He hooked a finger to his mouth to show me silence, then pointed out to the square. I squinted in the direction of his finger but couldn’t see anything. I was about to call him out as a traitor when I caught sight of a huddled figure shaking on the street. I couldn’t tell the gender at this distance, but the longer I looked the more it looked like someone crouched over a body. We all held our breath. The figure got up and stumbled around as if looking for something. We pressed ourselves against the wall as it looked in our direction. It didn’t see anything moving that it wanted, but it did see the lump of flesh in the middle of the square, and started stumbling in its direction. As the figure got closer I could see it was a blond female. Blood had lanced down her front and a top that had probably once been white and then scarlet red was now a diseased black. We were around 20 yards from the bandstand and when she climbed its steps we got a reasonable look at her face. I heard Rick choke a sob.
“Trudy.”
I snapped my head back to the bandstand. So this was Ass’s daughter that had been on the train. Ass had thought it was unlikely that she would survive and hell, he’d been right. Trudy dropped down to her hands and knees in front of the lump. It looked like she was sniffing at the rotting flesh. I screwed up my face in disgust and saw then immediately what I needed to do. I fumbled around in my bag for my hammer. Rick saw my gesture and pulled at my arm.
“What the fuck are you doing Warren?”
“You think Ass wanted to see his daughter running around the town doing that?” I hissed. “I’m doing the right thing.”
I yanked my arm back and without further thought, sprinted across the square. Her senses had all been preoccupied with the potential meal at her feet and so when she finally looked up and saw me coming, I was already two thirds of the way to her. As she started trying to get to her feet I was taking the steps of the bandstand two at a time. As she opened her bloodied mouth to shriek her carnal zombie cry I lifted my hammer. She had slipped as she tried to get up and was collapsing to one side. I spun the hammer head and hooked the claw with a sickening thud in to her temple; her falling momentum buried it that much deeper and she collapsed immediately, finally and utterly dead.
She fell on to the hammer and I couldn’t see a way of retrieving it quickly. I heard the others rushing behind me and turned to see them climbing the bandstand steps.
“Get back. Get back in to cover you idiots. She might be part of a larger group.” They panicked then, the indecisive part of the herd unsettled by their alpha’s reaction. “Get on the other side. Go on, you’re halfway here now. Leave me, I’m fine.”
I pushed over Trudy’s deadweight corpse. She came up against the mottled mound of flesh she had been scrutinising for dinner and I couldn’t completely roll her, so I pulled her towards me to flip her on to her back. Her skin was tinged with green and there was a sheen of sweat that felt revolting to touch, almost like handling a slug. I held my breath and pulled at the hammer from the handle. It was stuck too deep. I nervously placed a hand over her diseased eyes to brace her head and to settle my own rising bile at what I was doing. Expecting her to snap and take a chunk out of my hand at any second, I switched my grip to the hammer head and pulled. It came out with a nauseating sucking sound. I took my hand away and flipped, heaving in to the corner of the bandstand. I was making too much noise, I knew, but I couldn’t stop my body’s natural reaction. I had handled blood on the hammer and I had no idea what infection could be in that sweat. I needed to get to some antiseptic quickly. I looked over to the street we had been heading for and my spine iced. I couldn’t see any of the others. I desperately tried to look deeper, like we had for Trudy, but there was nothing. Still heaving I came to my feet, wiping at my mouth with my arm. I looked around and sprinted for the cover of the far buildings, hoping nothing had heard my vomiting.
I stumbled as I neared the end and fell to the ground in a huddle by the pub. I felt my arms scrape against cobble and the hammer went spinning away against the pub wall. I rolled a couple of times and came up against the wall myself. I scooted up until my back was pushed against the brickwork and brought my legs into a crouch. I was panting and I could feel tears sliding down my cheeks. I took in some great sucking breaths, trying to calm myself down even as I scanned the streets for any sign of my friends, but there was nothing. I turned my arms as I checked my elbows for cuts. There were some royal scrapes up each arm, but nothing I had to worry about. I didn’t want to use my hands to check my head as I had no idea whether or not I had infected fluid on me. I switched my attention from the group to my immediate survival. I could see across the street another pharmacy. This was a smaller independent one and the windows had long since been put through, but I hoped that it still had something I could use to wash myself down.
The street looked clear so I made a grab for my hammer and sprinted across the street and through the open door. Daylight streaming through the windows made everything seem less intimidating. I kept telling myself it was a normal shopping trip on my own as I made my way systematically through the aisles. The dead body on the floor gave me a start but it wasn’t moving. I stared at it for what felt like an age, and it didn’t so much as flinch. Deciding it was indeed nothing to worry about I stepped over it. A sweep of dank curly black hair covered the face and that made me glad. I’d got sick of seeing the faces of the dead. Most of the shelves were bare but I found a small section of that antiseptic wash paranoid people tend to take to the office. A few were left so I pocketed a couple and emptied another two, one on each hand. I gritted my teeth at the phenomenal stinging, tears running involuntarily down my cheeks. I didn’t know if this would work, but it was the most I could do to protect my body from infection. The most important thing now would be to find my friends and get back to the pier.
With a sinking heart I began to think that we had probably been betrayed after all, and despite my paranoia we had been powerless against Austin’s will. Glass crunched under my feet as I leant my head out of the window. The street was still clear and daylight still streamed down, though the day was beginning to bleed out. Where on earth had they gone?
Further up the street I could see more huddled bodies on the floor. We hadn’t been this far in to the town yet; had most of the action been up that way? Had that been where the swarm were before they were distracted down to the sea front? I cautiously stepped out and began the ducking run from building to building. This was the route we had planned and I couldn’t image they had gone any other way in the town itself – unless they had gone straight back to the pier, leaving me to my fate. I didn’t want to accept that chance. There was only one way I had to go.
The square where I had killed Trudy was a distant spot when the shrieking of an alarm shot through my eardrums. I dropped the hammer in shock, covering my ears at the unexpected squall. I hadn’t been exposed to such noise for days; the squealing, which was nearby, was more than a little painful. It was disorientating and at first I coul
dn’t identify where it was coming from. But I did recognise that standing in a main route wouldn’t be a good idea and as I tucked myself in to an alleyway I filtered it to coming from further down in to the town – the direction I had been heading, and not far based on the volume. I flattened myself on to my belly and edged out to the end of the alleyway. I glanced right and still couldn’t see any movement. It wasn’t clear what had set the alarm off, but I had no doubt that the sound would be travelling and would catch the attention of every undead in the area, including the ones by the pier. The time I had left to find and save my friends – well, Rick and Andy at the very least, perhaps even Matt, from that traitor Jez, was becoming limited. I looked left, swore to myself, and quickly ducked back as three Jumpers came sprinting down the road. As they passed I looked at where they went. Their destination was a home DIY store and I thought of the radios that Austin had emphatically asked for.
Anything could be happening in that store, and anything else could be on the way. But I couldn’t help seeing in my mind Carla’s reaction if I came back not just without Rick, but without knowing what happened to him, and not trying to save him either. I paced up and down the alley for a few frustrated seconds, swearing to myself and trying to work out what I should do. Rick was only one man. So was Andy. This situation was bigger than one person. Austin couldn’t be allowed to take control of the pier without anyone there to challenge him. That more than anything was a driving factor. Would I even be able to get back on to the pier without help? Had we even been betrayed? Were all four of them in trouble?
“Ah fuck it.”
I checked once more for runners. There were none on the way, at least on the high street. It was only a matter of time before I was joined by more. With no time like the present, I broke cover and legged it to the DIY store. There were no windows left and the automatic doors had once upon a time jammed halfway open; each side was covered in dark brown clotted blood. I edged through sideways and tried to avoid the glass shards strewn across the immediate floor. There was no sign of the undead, but they couldn’t be anywhere else. I had no chance of hearing them above the sound of the alarm. There was no fresh blood for me to follow and so much stuff already thrown about the place that an entire herd could have run through here and I would have been none the wiser. I couldn’t call out; what was the point? But there was a set of steps leading to another floor. It could have been hardware or it could have been an office and stock room. But it was a closed door that hadn’t been battered. We’d already established that the dead couldn’t deal with doorways. I started to wish we’d gone to a gym. Between treadmills and an outdoor swimming pool we’d have been impervious to this.
Great Bitten: Outbreak Page 18
