by Ricky Fleet
“At least they will draw a few of them away,” Kurt commented as the rear of the van passed them, closely followed by the chain of walking death. Another squeal of brakes broke the silence and the reversing lights came on, blinding in the night. The sound of the reversing beacon shrilled, warning the unheeding zombies to move out of the way. The driver floored it and swung the wide back directly at the pub, picking up as much speed as possible.
“Everyone, up. Now! Some lunatic’s going to ram us!” Kurt called backwards, rousing the group as he frantically dragged Sam away from the windows. Both father and son grabbed tables and held them facing the impending impact, scattering checkers all over the floor. The grinding crash reverberated in the confines of the bar. Brickwork and glass shards bounced from the table tops that Kurt and Sam held, shielding their loved ones as they gathered their meagre belongings. The bright lights blinked out when the driver shifted to forward, bringing another rumble of breaking masonry and snapping wooden joists from the upper floor.
“It’s coming down, get out of the way!” shouted John, pulling them all toward the safety of the toilet block. The ceiling protested with more rending snaps as unsupported weight was brought to bear on centuries old wood. The crashing noises subsided when a structural support landed with a thud on the solid bar, giving them a small window to escape through the four-foot-high gap.
“Go!” screamed Kurt, seeing the thick timber start to bend in the middle, threatening to snap at any moment and drop the whole roof onto their heads.
John went first, ducking low and encountering the first of the outside dead. With a single slash the top of the skull was split open and the creature dropped back outside. More were coming now that the van had disappeared into the distance, cheating them of their meal.
“Faster, get behind the bar and through the door.” John was ushering them past. They were all coughing from the dust that was swirling in the area, eyes stinging and red.
“Who the fuck was that?” wheezed Kurt.
“I have no idea, but they want us dead,” John answered while severing the head of a female zombie that had stepped over the rubble. They both fled into the small corridor to join the rest of the group and try to get to those trapped upstairs before the whole place collapsed. Incredibly, Jodi, Mike and Debbie were already waiting. Jodi looked scared but Mike was furious, he stepped forward and grabbed Kurt by the throat.
“Look what you’ve done to us. You and your fucking family!” Mike roared, slamming Kurt into the wall.
“Not so brave are you now tough guy?” Debbie laughed and danced with joy at the spectacle.
“Mike, leave him alone, what are you doing? It’s not their fault,” Jodi screamed at her partner.
The others were reluctant to hurt Mike. They had been the catalyst for the devastation and felt guilty their home was now in ruins. Braiden felt no such compunction, he stepped forward issuing a sharp head-butt straight into Debbie’s face, breaking her nose with a crack and a gush of blood. Slumping to the ground she wailed, clawing at her face to try and rip the pain away. Braiden passed John and Peter who were wrestling with Mike, trying to break the stranglehold. He withdrew the sharpened screwdriver and stabbed at Mike’s buttocks, penetrating the muscle. Blood ran down the steel shank and Mike dropped to the floor, screaming and holding his pierced flesh.
“You’re fucking dead!” screamed Mike at the young boy who stared back at him, wiping the bloodied driver on his trousers.
“Want me to finish the job?” Braiden asked, taking a pace forward and raising the weapon, ready to follow through with the threat.
“Ok, sorry,” Mike groaned in pain, holding up a hand to ward off the attack, “You didn’t have to stab me though.”
“It’s only your arse. Fat and muscle, no major blood vessels. It will hurt like a bastard though. My dad Lennie used to do it all the time with a box cutter on people who owed him money. He called it striping, I guess because of the scars afterwards. We can call yours spotting. You shouldn’t have hurt my dad,” Braiden said, cowing Mike with his stare.
Mike stood up and his bottom muscles flexed, sending white hot pain through his body. He would pay Braiden back for this, with interest. Debbie came over and tried to help but he just pushed her away.
“Get the fuck away from me,” he snarled.
“I was only trying to help,” Debbie complained, fresh tears running down her cheeks but not from the broken nose this time. The family were shocked. A similar rebuke from Peter would have been met with vitriol and screaming.
“Let’s go, we go out through the kitchen door. Jodi you said it was clear?” John asked as they bundled through into the cooking area.
“Oh no,” Sarah moaned as the sounds of hammering greeted them from behind the door and heavy freezer.
“Jodi, are there any other ways out?” Gloria asked desperately.
“No, I’m sorry,” she said with a look that spoke of understanding. They were trapped and the only way out would be to fight. She reached into a small nook and pulled out a Louisville Slugger aluminium baseball bat that she used for training sessions with her old softball team; the Chichester Wildcats.
“We have to go through them,” Sam declared, trying to carry off the bravado. The fear in his eyes betrayed the truth; some, or all, would die here because of his childish fantasies.
“We can’t, we are too disoriented. I can barely see from all the dust in my eyes. We would be slaughtered,” John reasoned, trying to blink away the tears.
“The cellar is safe, we will hide out and decide what to do when we are more prepared,” Kurt directed them all down the wooden staircase, watching the bar door for signs of movement. They just made it down and closed the hatch after themselves as the first rotting monster entered the hallway. It was oblivious of the floor and hook mounted within it, so it just shambled past into the kitchen they had just vacated. More came, many more. The pub had never been busier.
**********
Sarah convinced Mike to drop his trousers so she could wrap some sterile bandage around the buttock from their first aid kit. Debbie mothered him, fluttering around like a hummingbird, wiping his sweaty face with a cloth, which only soured his mood further.
“Leave me alone for fuck sake!” Mike shouted, grabbing the fabric and throwing it into a dark corner.
“Sorry,” Debbie whispered. She was now the weaker member in the partnership, no longer able to bully. It was a remarkable transformation in personality, abuser to the abused.
Jodi ignited the lanterns and placed them on the floor. They had all moved away from the collapsed end of the building, John had worried that the weight could drop into the cellar at any time. The lager barrel area with the lift was brightly illuminated with flame glow. Candles from the bug out bags were lit and placed evenly on the floor.
“Can we get out through there?” Braiden asked, pointing up at the twin steel doors of the lift access.
“No, it’s got a heavy duty padlock. We could smash through, but the noise would mean they would all be waiting for us,” Jodi explained.
“So we really are trapped,” Mike complained. “Great work.”
“We’ve survived worse than this. Don’t worry, we will be fine,” Kurt said, massaging his neck.
“Did I say I was worried?” Mike said, glowering.
“It’s obvious you’re worried, that’s why you were hidden away in here,” Braiden stated, trying to get a rise out of the tattooed bully.
“You little bastard! I’ll rip you apart with my bare hands!” Mike stepped towards Braiden, ready to take him on even with the screwdriver.
“I don’t think so,” Sam said, raising the slingshot and aiming it straight at his face. Gloria had the shotgun aimed at his crotch and the rest got between them with razor sharp blades at the ready. Honey growled deep in her throat, daring Mike to move. His bravery faltered at the group’s anger and his shoulders slumped in resignation. In his inner mind he thought; They will pay for this, each
and every one of them. They won’t even see it coming.
“One more word and I will kill you, do you understand?” Kurt asked, clutching the hatchet. Mike just stared, refusing to answer, trying to regain some confidence. Sam loosed the bearing and it tore through several bottles of fine wine, shattering them and spilling the sweet smelling contents onto the earth which absorbed it like a dry sponge. He reloaded in one fluid motion before Mike had finished ducking and flinching at the passage of the metal.
“Jesus, you could have killed me!” Mike shouted.
“Yes, he could have, but he didn’t. Now calm down so we can get out of here. We never wanted to cause you both any aggravation.” Sarah was trying to placate Mike. Any conflict within the group would leave them all vulnerable. They may not like each other, but survival depended on cooperation.
“What we may have to do is raise the hatch and kill them one by one as they fall down the stairs. It isn’t the best idea, but it’s all we have that I can think of.” Kurt had calmed down and lowered his weapon.
“The place is swarming with them, are you crazy?” Mike wasn’t too happy with the plan.
“It doesn’t matter; the hatch will provide a bottleneck. They can only get down one or two at a time which is more than manageable,” John explained. “We could even hide by the side of the staircase while someone acts as bait. Then we destroy them from the shadows.”
A rumble of movement caused them all to duck and cover their heads. Streamers of dust fell from the ceiling where the bar area had now been buried by the upper floors.
“If that lot comes through, we will have dozens down here with us,” Gloria said, listening to the settling of tonnes of wood and brick onto the cellar ceiling.
“That doesn’t look like dust.” Jodi pointed to a puffy cloud that was being drawn down into the darkness.
“You have got to be shitting me. Again?” Kurt groaned, holding his head in his hands. Everyone looked at him with confusion.
Realisation dawned on Jodi when her lantern banished some of the darkness, “It’s smoke. The wood burner must have been damaged. The pub is on fire.”
“What do you mean, again?” Mike demanded, already feeling the oppressive weight of the burning building.
“Not now. We have to smash the lift and take our chances,” John shouted.
“I would shoot it, but the ricochet from the steel could kill us.” Gloria lowered her gun, ignoring the impulse to blast through the plate to get at the lock.
“Jodi, how thick is the wall up there?” John asked her, pointing at the blocked barrel tunnel.
“Only a single layer of bricks. It blended in so well no one would even know there is a hole there to get down here,” she detailed.
“Breaking that out will be quicker and quieter, what do you think?” Kurt asked his father.
“Let’s do it, Jodi can we borrow the lamp please?” Kurt held his hand out and she passed him the glass covered flame.
John and Kurt crawled into the small opening and climbed. The face of the brickwork was illuminated and Kurt started to hammer away at the barrier. Hopefully the noise of the fire and collapse would help to mask some of the dull thuds of the tool. John watched while holding the lantern over Kurt’s shoulder to help him. The glass door on the lantern had opened on the ascent and the flame started to waver, flopping around inside the vessel. Goosebumps rose on his arm with a cold breeze that washed over the exposed skin. John frowned, there was no opening yet, so the air should be still. Kurt wasn’t swinging with sufficient force to cause a draft of that power. Looking to his right there was a small section of wall that was crumbling. It didn’t match the surrounding stonework of the tunnel, so John poked at the cement, which fell away, increasing the cold air.
“Kurt, stop. Look at this.” John showed his son, who then swung the hammer at the older surface. The wall crumbled, exposing another small tunnel into the surrounding ground.
“Do you think this is it?” Kurt asked, ecstatic they may have a safer means of escape.
“Sam, you were right,” called John. “We have found the smuggler’s tunnels.”
“I told you they were here!” he called out excitedly.
Kurt crawled forward, the air of ages swept past him now that the area was clear. It was faintly unpleasant and he held his nose. It was the smell of decay, but thankfully not the decay of flesh. That scent was now so well-known they could detect it easily, like a bloodhound. After a short distance, the tunnel dipped downwards, dropping several feet lower before opening up into a wider storage area.
“Come through, it’s safe,” he called out and their bags were passed down. The family joined him in the small cave, surveying the scene with interest. The room was twelve foot square, with a low ceiling. Most of the group had to crouch within the confines.
“People were shorter back then, they would have been fine in here,” Sam told them.
Wooden struts were wedged at intervals across the area and then continued into the tunnel that led from the room. The air was rank with the smell of mould, the timber was moist and where Kurt touched it, soft with decay.
“We need to be careful, or it could all come down,” he said, leaving it alone.
In the corner were a dozen green bottles, still corked and containing a dark liquid. A few wooden barrels were broken in the corner. The damp air, coupled with the alcohol inside, had corroded the wood, leaving the rusted iron cask bands behind. They resembled a stack of rotten wedding rings, suitable only for the dead.
“What is that?” Braiden asked with awe. Against a wall stood an ancient rifle, merging into the wall itself with the passage of time. The long barrelled gun was a flintlock type, old and valuable if it had not been in such poor repair. Laid next to it was a pistol, similarly corroded and becoming one with the floor. The young boys couldn’t help but let their imagination run wild, who had held these weapons? Smugglers, criminals, highway robbers? The romance of the era was compelling. Not the romance of love, but of the outlaw. The adventure of being outside the law, always running, dodging the gallows for the next big score. The reality had probably been far less thrilling, the existence had often been hard and ended with a short drop with a hemp rope around the neck.
“Wow,” Sam uttered and tried to pick up the guns. They just crumbled in his hands and a look of disappointment crossed the boy’s faces.
“They have been down here a long time,” Paige commiserated.
“Dad, do you have the compass?” Kurt asked John who reached into the backpack and withdrew the small plastic instrument. The needle swung wildly, before settling on north.
“We don’t have a proper map unfortunately, only Sam’s handout sheet from school. But if these tunnels are like a spider web, we should be able to head north-east as much as possible and reach the pub by the hospital. As long as we maintain the right heading we can’t go wrong. My only concern is the fragility of the tunnel supports, there may well be cave-ins that we will need to go around,” John told them. A roar of devastation bounced through the small hole they had crawled through, the pub had fully collapsed and fallen into the cellar. Small cracks started to form in the ceiling of the cave, dropping soil onto their heads.
“Move it, into the tunnel!” Kurt whispered urgently, ushering them away from the crumbling danger. The mouldy wood started to sag, no longer able to support the weight of the dirt it held aloft.
They filed down the narrow tunnel, careful to avoid the remaining struts, lest they snap like toothpicks and crush them in an avalanche of soil. After fifty feet the rumbling subsided and the worst of the settling was over. Kurt slowly walked back and the room, plus about twenty feet of tunnel was now cut off, buried beneath a thousand tonnes of crumbled earth.
“Fucking marvellous, now we are trapped in here.” Mike was sweating and fear cast a pall over his face.
“Mike’s claustrophobic,” Jodi explained.
“Yeah, so what? It’s like being in a coffin down here.” His breathing wa
s becoming ragged, gasps instead of proper inhalations.
“Mike, calm down. You will have a panic attack,” Jodi cautioned, trying to make him see sense.
Debbie was watching with concern. Mikes face was going red from the lack of oxygen and he was close to breaking point. He would flee headlong down the tunnel and careen off of the walls, killing them all. Sarah stepped forward and took his face in her hands.
“Mike, look at me. Look at me!” she shouted, gaining his attention. “Slow down, take a deep breath.”
Kurt looked at the ceiling with trepidation but the echoes of the yell died and nothing fell onto them. Mikes eyes were still wild, looking round for a means of escape that didn’t exist.
“No, here. Look here,” Sarah continued, meeting his gaze, “That’s good, now keep the breathing slow and steady. That’s better, nice and slow.”
Mike’s face was returning to a healthy colour. He closed his eyes and continued the breathing, slowing his heart which galloped like a stallion inside his chest. The rest of the group had been gripped by their own fear at the near meltdown of Mike. The reality of their subterranean endeavour impressed it upon them fully. They would have to move slowly and carefully, assessing each step.
“I’m ok now. Thanks,” Mike said begrudgingly. He didn’t see John put away the hatchet that he had pulled out, ready to stop a crazed outburst with one swing. Debbie, however, had seen it and would bring it up later when they were alone. Her poisonous mind was fabricating plans on dividing them so she could have Mike to herself. If she could take some revenge at the same time; that would be the icing on the cake.
