The Undead (Book 23): The Fort

by Haywood, R. R.

  ‘I’m sorry to interrupt,’ Lilly says, drawing everyone’s attention to her. ‘Are you here for containers?’

  ‘Yeah,’ the punched man says, somewhat huffily and somewhat nasally. ‘We’re building a wall as it happens…’

  ‘We are too,’ Lilly says. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘That way,’ he says, thumbing west. ‘You?’

  ‘That way,’ Lilly says, pointing east. ‘The rest of the keys are in that building…get your trucks and we’ll get that other crane working and do both at the same time. Agreed?’

  The man looks at her, holding his head back as blood drips from his nose. ‘You in charge or something?’

  ‘I am suggesting a simple cooperative process to aid us both. I am hot, grumpy and in a rush, so I suggest you either get working or get out of my way…’

  ‘GET THEM AWAY,’ Kyle shouts, keeping pace behind the cluster of people ushering Damsa and her family away from their tent. Missiles coming in. Coins, stones, shoes and cans.

  ‘The armoury,’ Joan calls out, worried that they’ll all go to the front of the fort and leave the armoury undefended.

  ‘This is getting worse!’ Colin shouts, seeing the crowd move out from Tommy’s tent to lob more flaming toilets rolls to Damsa’s vacated tent and more towards the fleeing people.

  ‘THE CANTEEN!’ Simar shouts, running to stamp on a rolling ball of fire going too close to the wooden frame of the new structure. Another roar at the sight of him.

  ‘Ere,’ Tommy yells in the midst of his group. ‘Watch this…’ he pours brandy over Simar’s turban and scrunches it up before setting it on fire. Laughing when it goes to flame, scorching his hands as he juggles it for a couple of seconds before throwing it out. ‘THAT’S FOR ALLAH…MUSLIM CUNTS…MUSLIM CUNTS…COME ON…MUSLIM CUNTS…’

  Tent poles lobbed like spears and it’s all the small group can do to keep moving, taking cover behind a stack of plyboard, ducking down while Joan and Kyle keep the armoury door in the back wall in view, hoping to hell none of the drunken idiots get the idea to go for weapons.

  The situation escalates by the second. Lenski grabs Damsa, pulling her round to face her. ‘We go now…we run for the front. Sunnie, your family too…they’re not safe here…we go…ready?’

  They duck from more missiles bouncing off the plyboards that sail overhead, the noise so bad, the heat so awful.

  ‘We’ve got to go,’ Sunnie yells out. ‘Sim, Jas…’

  ‘I’m not bloody leaving,’ Simar yells.

  ‘You have to go,’ Lenski says.

  ‘I built that bloody canteen and there’s no way they’re tearing it down or setting it on fire…’

  ‘I’ll stay,’ John shouts. ‘Go!…I’ll protect it.’

  ‘No!’ Simar shouts. ‘No way…’

  ‘I’m staying with Sim,’ Jaspal says.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Maleek asks.

  ‘Simar won’t leave,’ Damsa explains quickly. ‘He and Jaspal are refusing…they said they’ll burn the canteen down…’

  ‘We are leaving right now,’ Tajj says.

  ‘Go!’ Lenski urges them, angered at their delays, fearful of the situation getting worse, and it does too with Damsa’s tent engulfing in fire with flames licking the sky.

  ‘Get out you fools,’ Kyle roars, wrenching people up to their feet, pushing them on. ‘GO!’

  ‘Maleek,’ Damsa yells, seeing her husband falter.

  ‘No,’ Maleek says, shaking his head, glancing at Simar and Jaspal and John. ‘No…I built that too…’

  ‘You have children!’ Damsa says, grabbing at her husband’s arm as people push and shout for them to run now. Everything a blur. Everything happening so fast.

  ‘Dad, please…’ Ameer says, pulling at his father’s wrist.

  ‘No. I will stay. I have to stay. I built that…we must defend it…go with your mother. All of you go…’

  ‘NOW,’ Kyle snaps, grabbing at them to push on. Colin, Agatha, Sunnie and more all pulling Damsa and the women. Tajj going with them. Shouting back. Bashir with Tajj, running away then stopping, shaking his head and going back to Maleek.

  ‘BASHIR!’ Tajj bellows. Ordering him to go.

  ‘BASH!’ Simar shouts in warning, pulling him back from a glass bottle flying towards his head. More flaming toilet rolls. Clothes rolled up, set on fire and thrown too. Small pockets of flame. Smoke wafting across the fort. Adding heat hazes and hurting eyes as Kyle and Joan watch the armoury door while the men left, those that bled and sweated to build the canteen run about trying to stamp the fires out while dodging the missiles coming in and all the time that heat comes down and that pressure grows.

  Truck after truck. Containers slammed on. Some not quite landing snug within the cradle, but it will do, and the loaded trucks pull forward, so the empty ones can take their turn.

  Heat and noise. Diesel fumes. Everyone shouting. Everyone red faced and feeling wretched. Mouths open. Gasping for air.

  ‘It’s taking too long,’ Lilly shouts, looking up. Clouds in the distance. The sky now grey. The storm is coming. She can feel it. They all can.

  ‘Just a bit longer,’ Mary shouts. ‘We’ll get a couple more then go…’

  People at the front of the fort. Families gathering. Children being held and grouped together. Everyone crowding between the inner and outer gate as Lenski rushes over with Damsa and the others. All of them shouting to Lenski, asking what’s happening, demanding to know.

  ‘Are the Muslims attacking us?’ a woman asks.

  ‘No!’ Ann says. ‘Just drunken idiots…everyone stay calm. We’re going to be fine. It’s just a few people who got drunk…’

  ‘Looks more like an uprising to me,’ Lisa says, pushing through the crowd to Lenski and Ann. ‘This is what happens when you work people too hard…’

  ‘Not now, Lisa,’ Ann warns.

  ‘Why isn’t the little tyrant here sorting her mess out? She caused this…’

  ‘They said it’s drunks,’ someone says.

  ‘And Muslims,’ someone else shouts.

  ‘Got what you wanted have you?’ Lisa asks, smiling grimly at Lenski. ‘How are you going to fix it? Come on…you wanted to be a leader? Where’s your sixteen year old schoolgirl now?’

  ‘NOT NOW, LISA!’ Ann shouts.

  Lenski thinks fast. The beach isn’t safe yet. The wall isn’t finished, and Peter’s men aren’t there. She can’t take these people over to the bay, but then leaving Damsa and the children in the fort like this isn’t safe either.

  ‘Hello?’ Lisa snaps, clicking her fingers at Lenski. ‘I said what are you going to do now?’

  ‘Sandy!’ Lenski spots her in the crowd, calling her over. ‘Get boats ready…if gets worse or if I say then get them over. Yes? Damsa and Sunnie family first. They are targets…’

  ‘Where’s Pardip?’ Sunnie calls out, seeing he’s not with them.

  ‘He’s back with his brothers,’ Ann says.

  ‘Stay here,’ Lenski says. ‘You wait…I go back…’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Norman says.

  ‘No, you stay. They shout at gay men too…they see you like they see Muslims,’ Lenski says, nodding at him to stay before setting off. Norman hesitates for a second then goes after her. Running towards the noise and smoke and a scene looking worse by the second.

  Tents and shelters on fire. The ground littered with debris and the big crowd spilling out past their boundary. Groups of them tearing tents down and kicking shelters over to get at the poles and belongings inside. Opening bags, scattering the prized possessions taken by families fleeing their homes. Smashing picture frames. Tearing photographs of lost relatives up. Kicking bags around. Throwing them into the fires. Smoke billowing up. The noise getting worse.

  Tommy focusses on the canteen building, staying close to the front line of the most hardcore angry people. ‘IT’S A FUCKING MOSQUE…LOOK AT IT…THEY’RE BUILDING A MOSQUE…’

  Pardip stamps on another fire wh
ile John covers him with a bin lid, holding it like a shield that becomes a target for things to be thrown at. Both of them holding sticks as weapons, readying to defend themselves. Simar, Jaspal, Maleek and Bashir running everywhere to stop the building setting alight. Taking whacks from cans, faces cut from bottles and poles launched at them.

  Kyle, Joan, Sam and Pea the only thing keeping the mob at bay. Still unable to fire at them, still unable to shoot unarmed drunks because the rules of society dictate you cannot shoot unarmed protesters.

  ‘WE’RE TAKING IT BACK,’ Tommy yells, strutting like a general behind his troops. Bare chested. A heavy stick in his hands. ‘OUR FORT NOW…ENGLISH FORT…BRITISH…NO FUCKING QUEERS AND MUZZIES…THEY SHOULD BE KILLED SO THE OTHERS DON’T COME HERE…WE’LL HANG ‘EM FROM THE WALLS…’

  ‘Blondie, we need to cut and run,’ Mary shouts. A glance up. Only grey above them. Only pressure bearing down. Threatening to unleash at any second.

  Lilly nods, lifting her radio to her mouth. ‘Peter…we need to go…’

  ‘We’re getting out,’ the guy Mary punched shouts as he rushes over. ‘This weather’s going to break any second…’

  ‘Same,’ Lilly says as the men left in the empty trucks drop out to clamber into the loaded ones. ‘I’m Lilly by the way…’

  ‘Gordon,’ he replies, shaking her hand. ‘We’re at Winterbourne barracks in Dorset near the border with Devon.’

  ‘Fort Spitbank up the coast,’ she replies.

  ‘I know it…got many there?’

  ‘Few hundred. You?’

  ‘Same…nice meeting you.’

  ‘You too,’ Lilly shouts.

  ‘Sorry about your nose,’ Mary says.

  ‘It really hurts,’ Gordon tells her.

  ‘I said sorry!’

  ‘Whatever…’ he waves a hand and runs off, heading down the line of trucks on his side to the front.

  ‘We’ll take our van back,’ Mary says, running down the line of trucks with Lilly as they both look to the sky and the low grey clouds coming in fast.

  ‘BURN THE MOSQUE…’ Tommy yells out, screaming so hard his voice rasps and breaks.

  ‘Wanker,’ Sam shouts, lifting her rifle, the most hot-headed of them all, the most fiery and she sights on Tommy who spots her aiming and laughs with delight, over-playing his reaction as he points at her and sways side to side. Wobbling his belly.

  ‘COME ON…’ he yells, urging her to do I while knowing she won’t, and he bursts out laughing when she lowers the gun, and that inaction spurs them on even more.

  ‘BURN THAT FUCKING MOSQUE DOWN…’

  It’s Keith that does it first. An educated man who worked as a financier in the City of London and who commuted daily from his leafy street in Surrey. Keith that liked to play squash and golf and always had the latest BMW. Keith that takes an empty beer bottle, pours some brandy in it, adds a strip of cloth, sets it alight and proudly shows his new mates who erupt in cheers and tell him to throw it. Like seriously. Throw it now before it goes bang you bleedin’ idiot. Keith throws it and even takes a run up with a solid overhand motion, lobbing it high so it sails long and smashes against a side strut of the canteen frame, showering the ground in glass as the brandy spills and ignites the wood. Another cheer. Another escalation as Simar and Maleek rush to the strut, beating it with their bare hands, ripping their tops off to beat the flames out, coughing from the smoke as the wind starts to blow.

  ‘It’s coming in,’ Mary says, driving the van behind the fleet of trucks laden with containers. Leaning forward to see the tree tops starting to sway. The sky streaked with grey and dark smudges of greens and blues. An intent above them. A thing coming. Foreboding and dark. The pressure now worse than ever. The air so thick they stretch their mouths, trying to pop their ears. The hairs on their arms prickling with static.

  ‘It’s going to be big,’ Lilly says, her voice seemingly flat and void of depth. The resonance sucked away. ‘We need to get back.’

  ‘What do you think we’re bloody doing?’ Mary asks.

  ‘No. I mean now…the water. The sea…’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The sea. If the storm hits we won’t get over in the boats…’

  ‘Ah gotcha. It’ll be fine. A few hours away won’t hurt…’

  ‘No. Go round…go! Put your foot down…’ she urges, pulling her radio close to her mouth. ‘Peter, we’re going on…I’m worried about the sea getting too rough.’

  ‘…hear…what…’ crackle and static coming back, the odd word blaring out.

  ‘Cheap shit,’ Mary says, looking at the radio. ‘It’s the weather, try again…’

  ‘Peter, we’re going back fast. The sea. I’m worried about the sea,’ she calls slow and clear as Mary accelerates to pull out behind the last truck and powers on down the line.

  ‘…going back…’ Peter says through the radio, the transmission breaking again.

  ‘Hang on,’ Mary says, speeding up to pull close alongside the lead truck as Lilly leans out, staring up at Peter leaning down.

  ‘THE WEATHER,’ he shouts, showing her his radio. ‘I COULDN’T HEAR YOU…’

  ‘THE SEA. I’M GOING TO RUSH BACK TO GET OVER…’

  ‘THE SEA? AYE. OKAY. GO…GO!’ he shouts, motioning her on.

  ‘Okay go,’ Lilly says, giving a thumbs up to Peter as the first strong gust hits the side of the van.

  Lenski feels the gust blowing over her face. The wind rising, but that pressure. It becomes something else. She shakes her head, feeling heart-broken inside at what’s happening. She should have stopped it. She should have realised the rot from Tommy would spread out. Letting Pamela show new people about was a mistake. Taking them to the infirmary to be poisoned even more by Doctor Lisa was a mistake. A catalogue of errors all leading to this point now, and the one thing they have that can end it is the one thing they will not do. They will not shoot them.

  She can’t do it. None of them can. They’re drunk. Stupid. They’re reckless and dangerous. They’re setting fires and destroying things, but the risk to life isn’t immediate and so all they can do is wait for the pressure to rise and get worse.

  The crowd get closer too, and as the distance lessens, so their aim gets better. Bashir goes down from a thrown pole whacking into his head. Norman rushing to his aid as Tommy mimics a rutting, fucking motion. Laughing as he does it.

  ‘YOU GONNA BUM HIM? BUMMING A MUZZIE?’

  The wind comes, catching the fire from Damsa’s tent, sending it to the next as more families spill out and start heading away. Shouted at. Jeered at.

  ‘GO ON…BURN THAT MOSQUE…’ Tommy roars the words out. He’s a warrior now. This is a battlefield, and these are his troops fighting for truth and justice. Fighting like the British lions they are. Like his ancestors did in the big wars.

  This isn’t what Tommy planned. Not at all. He was going to whip everyone up, make them react and then come in all suave and smooth to save the day and be a hero, except he wasn’t intelligent enough to plan for that, so instead he does this, what he is good at. Exploiting fears and urging people on to overthrow their oppressors, and in his mind, right then, while the smoke wafts over and the wind starts to blow, while that crushing pressure comes down and the sweat rolls over his swollen gut, he feels like a king-in-waiting.

  He will tear this fort down and be crowned the glorious leader. Then he can get Viagra and fuck who he wants. Power surges inside of him. Desire and greed. Lust and vengeance. ‘BURN THAT FUCKING MOSQUE…’ he pauses, drawing air, his face bathed in sweat. ‘AND KILL THE FUCKING MUZZIES…’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ‘It’ll be okay,’ Mary says as they feel the van buffet from the wind howling in. That awful sky coming in from the south. A wall of darkness as wide as the horizon.

  ‘We left it too long,’ Lilly says. Cursing herself. Clenching her jaw as Mary reaches over, squeezing her arm.

  ‘We’ll be fine. We’re like a few minutes now…and even if we don�
�t get back over it’ll be okay…Blondie, look at me, it’s fine…’

  ‘Okay,’ Lilly says, nodding at her, offering a tight smile. A feeling inside. A sense of dread. An awful feeling growing, but then she thinks about last night with Mary and about Nick and Howie and the confusion mingles in. The rejection last night. She tried to kiss Mary. No, she did kiss Mary. Mary kissed her back too. A girl. She kissed a girl. She thinks of Mary saying she isn’t gay. Lilly never thought of herself as being gay. She’s had girl crushes before but that’s normal for both men and women.

  ‘Jesus,’ Mary says, grabbing the wheel harder as the van slides across the road. ‘That bloody wind…ah look, we’re okay, there’s the road to the shore now. See, we’re not far…’

  ‘LENSKI!’ Sandy shouts, waving her arms while not wanting to go closer to the utter carnage across the way.

  ‘What?’ she asks, turning to see Sandy waving at her and she runs over, knowing it won’t be good news.

  ‘The sea…the wind…’ Sandy shouts. ‘It’s not safe to take them away…the wind is too strong…’

  ‘Okay. Take them now. Go now.’

  ‘It’s too late!’ Sandy shouts.

  ‘KILL ‘EM…KILL THE MUZZIES…KILL THE MUZZIES…’

  ‘Shit,’ Sandy says, hearing the chant, seeing the flaming missiles coming in, the tents on fire at the back. Pardip and the men rushing to put fires out on the new structure ‘We can’t get them over…’

  ‘Show me,’ Lenksi runs with her, sprinting across the fort as the wind comes in, howling and strong. They reach the people gathered at the gates. Scared people. Terrified and confused.

  ‘I need to get through please!’ Sandy shouts, panic in her voice as she pushes out onto the beach with Lenski. The wind suddenly so much harder from the lack of shelter from the walls. The sea churning with waves growing. ‘It’s too strong,’ Sandy shouts over the wind. ‘The waves are coming from the side and they’ll tip the boats over…we can’t aim for the shore…I’m sorry. They’ll drown if we try…’