“Please, can we go?” Jenna begged.
The three of them turned away and headed across the open field, which, unlike the others so far, took a distinct decline.
“Oh God, I think I’ve shit my pants a little bit,” Carl announced, picking at the seat of his trousers.
Muz was astonished at himself for being able to crack a small smile, in reaction to the man’s unnecessary honesty and Jenna’s expression of disgust at his announcement.
“You think that was bad?” Muz asked him. “You should try being attacked by man-eating horses.”
“Wait, what?” Carl replied incredulously. “You were attacked by a horse?”
“Three horses,” Jenna corrected him, “all as crazy as those people.”
They made their way down the shallow downward slope of the field and were thankful for the decline, which aided their weary feet in maintaining their momentum. It was nowhere near the stretching expanse Mill Hill Park had been, and they soon reached its end. Here they met a sharp bend in the road that Muz knew to be Flower Lane. They could see houses off along to their right and a small industrial estate directly across the road. To their left, there was nothing but a junction with another road. Both Jenna and Carl were grateful when Muz led them left, away from any buildings.
Only one abandoned car could be seen on this short stretch of the tightly arcing road. Muz knew from experience that, driving from the right, the left-hand bend was hidden from view by the houses and the right-hand bend that immediately preceded it. It was clear that the driver of the abandoned car had come into the turn far too fast, as many had before him, and he’d lost control. The severely adverse camber didn’t help matters, meaning that the car’s tyres had little grip when it was needed most. It was for these reasons that the blue Yaris in front of them now was balanced on its roof.
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything about what caused all this?” Muz asked Carl, finally conceding to engage him in conversation, as they checked out the upturned town car. “The mortally wounded turning cannibal and running riot in the streets, I mean. Just in case you weren’t sure what I was referring to.”
Carl eyed the police officer with suspicion. Was there an insult hidden somewhere in what he had just said, he wondered.
“No, officer. I was hoping you might know something, you being the law,” he replied.
Just then, a black Audi TT RS came careening down the hill and round the bend in the road. The driver didn’t see the Yaris and the three people in the middle of his path until the last second. Though he swerved dramatically to avoid hitting them, the front bumper of the Audi clipped the Yaris, causing it to spin on its roof, almost hitting the three stood only a few feet away. With the driver overcompensating for the impact, the Audi mounted the kerb and drove into the field, before finally coming to a stop. Still the driver tried to get it going again and its wheels span in the wet soft earth, as they tried to find traction.
“Can no one on this sodding borough drive?” Muz asked, his nerves shaken yet again.
A black man in his mid to late forties, with a heavy, muscular build and protruding gut, stepped out of the car. His face, the entire front of the shirt and the trousers he was wearing were caked in muddy water. His hair and the back of his clothes were smeared with soot and oil. He looked a mess. Looking down at the Audi’s rear wheels, he saw they had become entrenched in the dirt.
“Fuck,” he shouted and glared angrily at Muz, Jenna and Carl. “Look what you’ve done.”
“What?” Carl responded.
“You shouldn’t have been driving like a dick,” Muz told him.
“Oh, I’m sorry, officer,” the large man said, striding over to them. “I’ve spent the night freezing my arse off, hiding under a Land Rover and lying in a puddle, surrounded by zombies. Excuse me for wanting to get the fuck away from here as fast as possible. Besides, you people shouldn’t have been stood in the middle of the road.”
He stood up close to Muz, using his sheer physical presence to intimidate him, as big men often did.
“Zombies?” was Muz’s only response.
“Yes, zombies,” the man repeated. “What else do you call a man who’s running after you, despite his intestines trailing behind him and having three knives sticking out of his chest?”
Neither Muz, Jenna nor Carl could answer that question. They themselves had been wondering how these people were able to suffer the horrible injuries they had and still keep coming, as though there was nothing wrong. But zombies? That was a little farfetched.
“Are you three going to help me get this car back on the road?” the man asked.
“Only if you give us a lift to the police station,” Jenna was quick to respond.
“Sounds like a fair deal,” the black man grudgingly agreed after a moment’s consideration.
With that, the three men got behind the car, while Jenna sat at the wheel, and they tried to push it forward out of the trenches its wheels had created.
“Put it in second,” Carl told Jenna. “First is creating too much wheel spin. Let it rock back and forth.”
Trying to get the car to pull forward in second gear just caused Jenna to keep stalling it, much to the annoyance of the men heaving away at the boot end.
“Here, let me do it,” Carl said and got behind the wheel himself.
His luck was no better and despite the lower revs, still the drive wheels span in the dirt. Digging their feet into the soft rain sodden ground and pushing against the car just caused the group to uproot the grass. Before long, the area directly behind the Audi was a mud bath, affording them no purchase whatsoever with which to lean into the car.
“We need to find some bricks or something to push into the ground in front of the wheels, something for them to grip,” Muz said but a brief scan of the area showed that he wasn’t likely to find anything of the sort anywhere nearby.
“It’s well and truly stuck now,” the black man said eventually, peering under the car. “Look, the wheels are dug in so deep the axle’s almost touching the ground. We’d need a tow truck to get it out now.”
Feeling physically knackered and emotionally deflated, Muz sat slumped in the mud against a wheel arch. It was then that he heard the buzz of another helicopter approaching overhead. He didn’t bother to look up, annoyed again at the idea of the Press making a living out of his misery, and not wanting his wife and daughter to see his despairing face plastered all over the news.
Despite him wishing the thing would just go away, the noise of the rotors grew louder and more annoying, as the helicopter descended to hover no more than sixty feet above them. Muz looked up, his anger growing, but then jumped to his feet in excitement and waved his arms. This wasn’t a Press helicopter.
“It’s the police,” he shouted to the others around him over the deafening din.
It was India Nine Nine, the Metropolitan Police helicopter that covered London north of the river. Muz beckoned the crew to descend lower, his head swivelling left and right, as he quickly tried to determine the best place for them to land. His excitement was immediately infectious and the others too began to jump up and down.
The helicopter didn’t come any lower however and simply hovered above them a while longer, before disappointingly flying off, just as the Press had done. Muz stood there despondently, watching it shrink in the sky, until it disappeared over a line of houses.
“Well, so much for that,” Carl said flatly.
“They obviously decided there was no safe place to land,” Muz responded, instinctively defending his colleagues and not wanting to feel as utterly expendable as he did right now. But the truth was that there couldn’t be any stronger confirmation than what had just happened that he had been abandoned.
“Do you think they’ll come back for us?” Jenna asked.
“They will definitely have reported our location,” Muz told her, trying to be both as positive and non-committal as possible.
“Yeah well, maybe,” the large b
lack man chipped in now. “But we can’t hang around waiting to see if they send anyone to get us. It’s too dangerous.”
From everything they had seen and been through in the past thirty hours or so, they all knew he was right. They had to keep moving, to try to get out of the affected zone.
“Well, the car’s not going anywhere soon, so that’s definitely not an option,” Muz said. “We should start walking again.”
“Start walking? Walking to where?” the black man asked.
“Colindale nick,” Muz clarified. “It’s only a little way down the road from here.”
“I know where Colindale police station is and I don’t care how near it is. Have you any idea how crazy that is?”
“Me and the officer have made it all the way here from Salcombe Gardens,” Jenna butted in.
“I have no idea where that is but…” the overweight man of African origin started to say.
“It’s off Pursley Road,” Jenna cut him off.
“I don’t know where that is either but…”
“It’s…”
“Look, it doesn’t matter,” the man interrupted her, becoming angry again. “You’ve only got good luck to thank for getting any distance at all. It’s too dangerous to be…”
“I’m going,” Muz said abruptly, already sick of the argument that was beginning to unfold and feeling himself becoming annoyed. “If anybody wants to come with me, they’re welcome to do so.”
Without waiting for anyone to say anything in return, he turned and marched off towards the junction with Bunns Lane just a few metres away. Jenna immediately took off after him. From what she had seen, he was her best hope at the moment of surviving this.
“Doesn’t look like we’ve got much choice, mate,” Carl said to other man. “You know what they say; safety in numbers.”
“I’m not your mate,” the black man said, staring at Carl in a domineering manner.
He still blamed the three of them, at least in part, from him having crashed his car. Despite this, he too headed off after Muz.
Standing alone now, Carl took a quick look around him, taking in the nearby industrial buildings, the houses and the trees at the far end of the field. With a nervous shiver and still picking at the crack of his bum, he scurried off to catch up with the rest of the growing group.
At the junction, Muz took a right, heading down the road that took them around the rear of the small industrial area. Directly ahead of them, the road passed under two stone bridges. The first of these supported the M1 and the second a train line.
Looking into the short tunnel the two adjacent bridges formed, the four of them saw more broken down cars. Some, it appeared, had crashed into the walls of the bridges and had been left by their owners where they had come to a stop. Others had then tried to squeeze their way round those obstructions but they had gotten stuck.
“I’d rather not chance that,” Muz declared.
Though he couldn’t see any movement amid the darkness of the shadows cast by the looming brickwork, he didn’t want to put himself in a position where he might be attacked in such an enclosed area.
As he was looking for a route through the bushes at the side of the road, up to the motorway above, Muz noticed the billboard that was standing nearby just before the first bridge. The advert it displayed was for a holiday company. It showed a scene of a beach with white sands and a surreally blue sea. Each of the scantily clad bronzed people, all of whom seemed so ecstatic in admiring the view, sported perfect physiques. Written across the bottom of the advert in large bold letters were the words, ‘It’s time to escape!’ Muz could not agree more.
With Muz leading the way, he and the little motley group clambered up the embankment to the M1. Amid the young short trees that grew on the verge, there was a wire fence. In presenting an obstacle to people reaching the motorway it was a token gesture at best, and the four of them were easily able to climb between the horizontal wires.
At the top of the rise, the M1 still stood another six feet above them, above a concrete wall. Muz turned and leaning his back against the wall, interlocked the fingers of his upturned hands in front of him. He told Jenna to place a foot in his hands and doing so, she climbed up.
Carl had already managed to leap the wall and helped her to pull herself up to the road. The black man, who was clearly adverse to physical exertion, struggled with the climb but refused any help offered to him. The other three stood with pained expressions for a while, as he grunted and huffed with his arms and head being the only parts of him visible over the ledge. Eventually, he managed to lift the bulging mass of his abdominal fat over the wall and flick his legs up after him. As he lie panting and coughing, face down on the hard shoulder of the road, the others tried not to let him hear their collective sigh of relief.
The M1 was completely clear of any traffic, moving or otherwise. It was strange to see such a busy major road completely devoid of cars. It was almost eerily desolate. Looking south, the electronic sign that stretched over the three lanes in that direction displayed three illuminated red crosses. Muz’s colleagues in the Traffic Division must have managed to close the road off down at junction one and another junction up to the north, prior to the spreading madness reaching here, the copper concluded.
“Are you sure this is safe?” Jenna asked, feeling nervous at standing on a motorway.
“Do you see any cars?” Carl asked her by way of answering her question.
“I think what’s more to the point, is do you see any zombies?” the black man added.
While the others stood waiting, Muz pondered for a moment whether to give up the idea of getting to the nick and just head north, following this road. In the end, he decided against it. If they came into contact with any of the affected people on this long empty stretch, their only hope would be to try to outrun them. And from what he had seen so far, there was absolutely no chance of that.
Crossing the three southbound lanes, he hopped over the concrete crash barrier on the central reservation and made his way over to the far hard shoulder. The others followed and joined him in looking beyond the thin stretch of shrub land that stood between the motorway and the parallel train line. They were disappointed at what they saw there. A sturdy fence made of vertical metal panels with cruelly spiked tops stood in their way.
“Great,” Carl griped.
“Yeah, nice plan,” the black man added.
The muscles in Muz’s jaw tightened, as he fought the urge to respond.
“Let’s just walk south for a bit,” Jenna suggested, trying to diffuse the tension. “There’s no mad people up here and it’s heading in the right direction, right?”
“Right,” Muz agreed.
They trudged on again, their heads low and morose expressions set hard on their faces. Jenna, unable to take the silence, was the first to speak.
“Did you really spend the night under a car?” she asked the newest member of their sorry group.
“Yes,” the big man replied. “Up on Mill Hill roundabout. I was totally surrounded by those zombies all night. I thought they would never leave and was worried that one of those running around on all fours would eventually see me under the car. But then I heard a scream and they all took off running. You didn’t have to tell me twice. I crawled out from my hiding place, got back in my car and I was off.”
“That scream was me,” Jenna said.
“Yeah, she saved your life,” Carl added.
Rather than showing any level of gratitude, the black man scowled and muttered something virtually inaudible about his Audi TT under his breath.
“So, what’s your name anyway?” Carl asked him.
“Chakamunda,” the man replied, his voice full of pride for his African name.
Carl’s eyes widened in response to the complicated collection of syllables and a smirk crept across his lips.
“Oh what, is that too black for you to wrap your head around?” the big man asked him.
“I never said a word,�
�� Carl responded with affected innocence, his smile still broadening.
“You didn’t have to,” the black man said moodily.
“Hey,” Muz stepped in. His mind was focused with tunnel vision on getting to the police station and he could do without having to witness the beginning of what he might later have to record as a racial incident. “Will you two keep the noise down? Grahame Park Way is just over the other sides of those tracks and we’ve no idea how many crazies might be wandering around.”
After the copper’s reprimand, they walked in silence a little longer.
“You got a phone on you?” Carl then asked Chakamunda.
“No,” he replied gruffly.
“Why not?” Carl asked.
Chakamunda stopped in his tracks, blocking Carl’s path and glowered at the smaller man.
“Why don’t you?” he asked aggressively.
Carl, looking nervous, didn’t respond. The big man snorted at him, turned away and carried on walking. Carl allowed himself to drop back a little.
A short distance further along the motorway, Jenna stopped suddenly, pointing to their right.
“Look,” she said. “There’s a gap under the fence over there.”
The others followed her line of sight and saw she was right. A shallow ditch had been dug out directly under the fence. It meant they should be able to squeeze under and through, to the train line that lay between them and the police station further along Grahame Park Way.
“Must have been dug out by a fox wanting to expand its territory,” Muz told the others. “You’d be surprised how many there are around here. I see a lot of them wandering the streets when I’m on nights.”
Jenna was the first to wriggle through the gap and she did so with the ease of a ferret. Muz and Carl followed, dragging themselves through the cavity in the dirt. Chakamunda, the only person now still on the motorway side of the fence, simply stood looking down at what, to him, was no more than a divot.
“Come on,” Muz urged him. “Your suit’s already ruined.”
Sudden Death: A Zombie Novel Page 13
