by C. A. Earl
‘Jesus, I think it’s eating’ whispered Ben, his stomach turning over at the very thought.
‘Then give it a minute’ replied Harry. ‘Bloody thing saved my life. Least I can do is let it ‘ave a last meal...’
‘Hang on’ added Chris. ‘What if there’s more than one in there? I mean, Katie didn’t see that one before; maybe there’s others?’
‘Good point’ mumbled Ben, drawing the long-handled axe from his belt. ‘In that case I say we just open the door and see what comes out. If there are more of them in there then they can only come at us one at a time...’
Ashley looked at the stained blade of the axe and then glanced at the screwdriver being wielded by Harry and the large hunting knife now in Chris’ hands. ‘Just give me a sec’ he said, stooping to examine the soldier’s body. There were a number of pockets all over the jet black uniform and all were empty, but attached to the dead man’s belt was a cylindrical metal baton shaped like a policeman’s truncheon.
‘What’s that, a club or something?’ asked Chris as he watched Ashley unclip it.
The Scotsman held the baton up, instantly noticing a raised button at its base. He pressed it without thinking and jumped as a gleaming metal spike suddenly ejected from the housing like a modified switchblade.
Shhhhkkkkk!
‘Jesus Christ, careful with that thing!’ cried Ben, noting that the spike was around a foot long with a barb at the end. ‘Let me see’ he added, tentatively reaching out and taking it from the other man. Chris moved closer to look as Ben carefully examined the sleek design.
‘I guess that’ll do the job’ gasped Chris.
‘Yeah’ agreed Ben, handing it back to Ashley. ‘If I didn’t know better I’d say it was made specifically to do the job. Okay, enough fucking around. Are we all ready to do this?’
The others nodded and then Chris quickly looked over his shoulder. Sarah had been keeping a conspicuous distance at the far end of the corridor but was now nowhere to be seen. The teenage boy craned his neck, trying to see further around the corner, but it was impossible to see any more from his angle.
‘She went upstairs’ said Ashley. ‘Must be with Katie and the wee girl.’
Snapping his fingers, Ben refocused the youngster’s attention. ‘Hey, come on, Chris? Are you ready?’
Chris gulped and nodded purposefully, holding up his knife.
‘Right then’ grumbled Harry, reaching for the door handle. ‘Here we go.’
~ 3 ~
Harry Skinner pushed the door open and all four men stepped back in readiness as a gurgling rasp echoed from the gloom within. A shuffling sound followed, growing louder as something moved ever closer.
‘Let me’ whispered Ashley, flicking a glance at each of the others in turn.
‘Okay, but make sure you don’t get bit’ Ben warned with a scowl. ‘I still need to know everything you’ve gotta tell us.’
‘I wasn’t planning on it. Getting bit, that is.’
As if it was some kind of bizarre initiation, the gangly, dressing-gown wearing Scotsman moved to the centre of the doorway with the spiked baton tight in his white-knuckled fist. He took a deep breath and paused, waiting for the attack to come.
Three seconds later the former woman emerged, her diseased brain glistening through a wide split in the front of her skull. Using the aperture as a target, Ashley went straight on the offensive, thrusting the spike into the crack and then immediately wrenching it free. A squirt of moss-green liquid ejected onto the tiled floor as the de-animated zombie stiffened and suddenly collapsed, dropping to the floor like a pile of dirty laundry. Even as it fell Harry grabbed the corpse by its bloodstained cardigan and hauled it away from the open door, dragging it across the floor and laying it next to the dead soldier. Ashley flicked the gunge from the end of his spike and stepped aside to make room for Ben and Chris.
‘Our turn’ said Ben, clutching his axe tightly. ‘You sure you’re ready, Chris?’
‘Ready.’
The two men stood outside the door and strained their ears to listen. Faint groans could again be heard from within the darkness but this time there was none of the characteristic shuffling sounds that they had grown used to. Whatever was left inside the room was definitely not moving. After a full minute of peering into the gloom, Chris whispered:
‘What do we do now? Sounds like there’s another one in there but I don’t wanna risk going in if we can’t even see...’
Ben nodded in agreement and looked back over his shoulder. ‘We’re going to need some light in there.’
‘I’m on it’ announced Ashley, pressing the button on the metal baton. A slick ‘Shhhhkkkkk!’ sound reverberated around the hallway as the spike retracted and then he ran off in the direction of the kitchen. Ben and Chris remained focused on the darkness of the open door as they heard him rifle through a multitude of drawers and cupboards, cursing as he slammed one after another. After a minute or so he reappeared behind them with a torch that he had found at the top of a fuse cupboard. He turned it on and held it up, scything a beam of yellow light over their heads and into the darkness, revealing a silver sports car peppered with bullet holes.
‘Whoa’ whispered Chris.
‘Shine it around’ suggested Ben, trying to get a fix on the groaning sounds.
Ashley did as instructed, moving the torchlight along the length of the room, highlighting a section of shelves containing car wax, screen wash and other car care products. Shining it onto the far wall he also illuminated the inside of the garage door which, as expected, was sealed shut.
‘Hang on, what’s that?’ asked Chris, pointing down at something just visible at the left-hand edge of the beam. Ashley trained the torch back toward the vehicle’s front bumper to reveal the protruding boots of the fallen soldier. That was where the moaning sounds were coming from. ‘Shit’ said Chris. ‘He’s still alive.’
‘And there’s the rifle’ said the Scotsman, shining the beam of light under the car at the butt of the weapon.
‘Out o’ the way’ grumbled Harry Skinner, suddenly snatching the torch from Ashley and pushing past the others. Clearing the thick stone steps with one huge stride, he dropped down into the room and stooped to pick up the rifle. Ben leaned through the open doorway and took the weapon from him as the big man turned his attention to the front of the car. There, illuminated by the torchlight and lying on his back with his mask and goggles still attached, was the other soldier.
Harry shone the light over the man’s body, which apart from his twitching head, did not move. But there was something else that had caught the giant’s attention. This soldier had been incapacitated; disabled by the shotgun blast and left defenceless against the zombie’s attack. He should be dead or at least mortally wounded, yet there was no blood.
None whatsoever.
His curiosity piqued, Harry sank to a crouch to examine the body in more detail. Another muffled groan came from the soldier’s mask but still he did not move.
‘What is it, Harry?’ Ben shouted from the doorway.
Harry chose not to answer straight away. He was otherwise occupied with the strange material of the soldier’s black uniform. It was smooth but strong to the touch, almost as if the fibres had been interwoven with threads of metal. If not bulletproof, it was the sort of material that might be bite proof...
‘The bugger’s alive’ Harry growled eventually. ‘Think his back’s broke but I can’t see that ‘e’s been bit. I’ll have a proper look ‘round and then I’ll bring ‘im out.’
Chris took a step back and glanced down at the two corpses lying next to each other.
‘What about these two?’
Ben sighed. ‘We’ll have to move them outside along with the one from upstairs. We should bury them, I suppose...’
Chris’ gaze lingered on the soldier’s uniform and at the mask and goggles lying beside the unmoving body. ‘What sort of uniform is that? Who the hell are they?’
Ben shot a look at Ashley.
His expression demanded an answer.
‘Look, I don’t know, alright?’ snapped the Scotsman, his Edinburgh accent growing stronger under pressure. ‘They picked us up along with loads of others including your brother - and took us to that place. We thought they were on our side. We thought they were saving us, for fuck’s sake...’
Ben leaned against the doorframe, his shoulders sagging. ‘Just...tell us what happened.’
Ashley gulped and cleared his throat, searching for the right words and the right tone. ‘O-okay. Well, there were hundreds of people at that place, maybe even thousands. Survivors, I mean.’
‘How many soldiers?’
‘Forty. Maybe fifty. There was a guy in charge too, a little guy; someone from the government. His name was – shit – my head’s all over the place - Henry Sawyer, that’s it! He wore one of those yellow suits – y’know, the biohazard suits, at least for the first few days.’
Chris and Ben locked eyes with each other as Ashley continued.
‘Well this guy was making sure that everyone was fed and taken care of. As for the soldiers - well they didn’t talk to us at all, really - but Sawyer kept on telling us to stay strong...’
Chris frowned. ‘Didn’t he ever say who was behind all this?’
Ashley shook his head. ‘No. He just said it was still being investigated and that they were getting things under control and that there would be a response. Blah Blah fucking Blah. It was everything we wanted to hear but the trouble was it was all bullshit - we just didn’t know it at the time. Then he told us that more secure compounds were already under construction and that places were being set up all over the country with better facilities and more supplies. He put together a schedule with everyone’s name on it and told us that we were all gonna be evacuated. He said the roads were slowly being cleared and that buses would be coming every day until everyone was somewhere safe. Well, the buses did start to turn up, that’s for sure. Always in the mornings and early afternoons, never later. And yesterday it was my turn...’
‘So what happened?’ asked Ben, aware that Harry had finished his search of the garage and was hauling the other soldier near to the open doorway. The Scotsman grimaced, recalling memories that were almost too horrific to bear.
‘Th-the bus took us a few miles out and then stopped by a green near a place called Halstead; I remember seeing a broken sign so that’s how the name’s stuck with me. Anyway, they told us some crap about fumes coming from the driver’s cab and asked us to get off while they sorted it out.’
Ashley’s eyes grew heavy with tears as Harry backed through the doorway, dragging the masked soldier by his collar. The wounded man moaned as the giant hauled him up into the light and then let out a cry as Harry deliberately let his limp body flop to the floor. Ashley Layton’s face, mournful just a moment before, twisted in anger at the sight of the soldier.
‘Kill that fucker!’ he yelled, lunging forward until Ben and Chris combined to stop him getting any closer.
‘Calm down!’ yelled Chris.
Screaming through tears, the Scotsman struggled against the two men for half a dozen seconds before all of the fight suddenly drained out of him. ‘They fucking murdered everyone!’ he wailed. ‘Women, kids... everyone on that bus! They shot ‘em and then spiked ‘em through the head to make sure they didn’t come back. That’s what they did and that’s what they’re still doing! It must be happening with every bus that leaves that fucking place!’
Chris and Ben released their hold on the sobbing man and Ashley staggered back, exhausted. Ben’s mind was racing with thoughts of his brother’s fate but he somehow held his emotions in check long enough to ask one more question:
‘How did– how did you get away?’
‘I was first off the bus’ gasped the Scotsman, clumsily wiping his eyes while trying to compose himself. ‘I was at the far edge of the green when they started to - when they started shooting. I made a run for it but this fat guy next to me got hit and knocked me over when he fell. I started crawling toward the trees and I guess that’s when they stopped shooting and started using those spikes. When I got to the trees and stood up they saw me. That’s when I ran, with those two bastards behind me all the way...’
Chris gulped, bringing the images to life in his mind’s eye. He had a knack of visualising things in great detail and most of the time it was a useful tool. These days it seemed to be more of a curse. ‘Why, though?’ he asked. ‘I mean, why take you out to that place to do it? Why didn’t they just do it when you were all together under one roof?’
‘I told you’ Ashley whined, glaring down in burning hatred at the masked soldier. ‘There were forty or fifty of these bastards and maybe thousands of us. I guess they thought if they took us off site in smaller numbers then they could deal with us more easily...’
Ben sighed loudly as Harry, silent until now, leaned over and picked up one of the automatic rifles from beside the doorway. He turned it over in his massive hands and began to grumble in a menacing tone that instantly caught everyone’s attention.
‘How many soldiers went on the bus?’
Ashley sniffed and used the trembling sleeve of his dressing gown to wipe his eyes again. ‘Uh...three, including the driver.’
‘And this place’ the big man growled. ‘This centre you’re talkin’ about; it’s near ‘ere, is it?’
The Scotsman tilted his head, assessing the distance in his mind. ‘A mile away, maybe. I was trying to get back there to – I dunno – warn them somehow...’
‘And you said the buses left in the mornings?’
‘And early afternoons...’
‘So they’ll have done their killin’ for today already then’ said Harry, handing the rifle over to Ben. Unsure if it was a direct question, Ashley nodded anyway while Ben examined the weapon as carefully as possible and tried to avoid putting his fingers anywhere near the trigger.
‘What are we going to do about him?’ asked Chris, nodding toward the prostrate soldier.
Harry waved his hand along the corridor toward the dining room. ‘Let’s clear the table in there and get ‘im up on it.’
The big man’s voice was drenched with menace. Ben knew at that moment they were going to cross a line that none of them would ever come back from.
~ 4 ~
Katie Reilly sat on the edge of the bed and smiled as she stared down at the child playing by her feet. Muffled voices from downstairs, much calmer now, continued to filter through the half-open door, indicating that the others had their situation under control. She would return to them in a few minutes, but only after taking time to enjoy this momentary diversion.
‘This is Bella’ said the little girl, talking not to Katie but instead to a motley trio of toys that she had arranged in a line on the carpeted floor. ‘She wants to be your friend. You can all take care of each other...’
Placing her beloved knitted doll down, Cassie Sommers sat back on her heels and paused to allow a response from a lifeless teddy bear, plastic turtle and wooden pull-along dog. A few seconds later she leaned forward and pushed all the toys together before sweeping them up in her arms. With an excited grin she glanced up at Katie, whose blue eyes widened with exaggerated interest.
‘Are they all friends now, Cassie?’
The little girl nodded enthusiastically but followed it almost immediately with a sudden, gasping yawn. ‘Uh-huh. I think they’re a bit tired now, though.’
Katie smiled again. ‘I bet they are. How about you?’
Cassie put the toys down and rubbed her eyes, yawning once more. She was already half-asleep and swaying when she nodded for a second time. ‘Um, I’m...a bit tired...too...’
Thinking two steps ahead, Katie stooped and caught the exhausted little girl as she tipped forward, feeling the small body go limp in her cradled arms. She stared into the child’s face and was amazed to see that Cassie was already dozing heavily. Moving as carefully as possible, Katie carried her over to the bed and placed her under the
covers before kissing her gently on the forehead. Finally, she picked up the knitted doll and tucked it under the blanket next to Cassie’s head.
‘No room for you lot’ she whispered to the other three toys as she turned away from the bedside. At the same time her attention was caught by the flash of her reflection in a dressing table mirror.
‘Christ’ she mumbled, taking note of the errant tendrils of blonde hair across her face and the pale hue of her skin. The wrinkles at the edges of her slightly puffy eyes were more obvious now too, as were the dark circles of exhaustion around them. Gradually looking down at her clothes, Katie continued her harsh critique. Her jeans were stained and grubby-looking and her blouse, despite having been washed back at the Shoreham house, was crumpled and off-white. Still in place though was the safety pin that Reg Herbert had given her to replace a lost button on the first day of the attacks. She froze, conjuring up an image of that kindly old man. Poor Reg. God, how she missed him...
Biting her lip, she spun away from the dressing table and moved over to the chest of drawers. Children’s clothes dangled from each half-open draw and she pulled four items from them to look at in greater detail. Damn sight better than that filthy dress, she thought, blindly folding the garments into a pile while glancing over at the slumbering Cassie. She placed the clothes on top of the chest of drawers and tossed the mouldy apple that had been left there into a waste-paper bin. At that moment a cloud moving across the sun dulled the light coming through the window and made her look at her watch. It was 2pm., but as for what day, she couldn’t be sure.
Better get downstairs, she thought, knowing that the others would be dealing with the bodies of the soldiers and the old woman. There was no sense in waking Cassie though; better to let the little girl get some rest.
Deciding whether or not to close the curtains, Katie took a step closer to the window and peered out. The sky was overcast now, much darker than it should be for an early afternoon in April. Then she lowered her eyes. Down below, wandering up the driveway and around the front of the mansion, were scores of staggering zombies.
