Day Zed - Box Set: Volumes I and II

by Charles Smith

  After wishing each other luck the group split into three separate teams, and each made their way to their designated points. Dave and Daryl chose to take up their positions inside of the security booth, which was located just inside of the tall metal gates. There were so far no signs of disturbance or movement from survivors on the outside of the gates, maybe Kathy was jumping to conclusions, Dave thought to himself. What did concern him was the appearance of dozens of the undead the other side of the barrier; they now milled aimlessly along the length of the road outside. Why had they just suddenly appeared in the area? It didn’t appear to Dave that Daryl was too concerned by their presence. “What are the chances that anyone would be stupid enough to attempt to come through that lot, in order to get in here?” Daryl suggested to him. His remark didn’t placate Dave, and having that many of the undead loitering around outside left him feeling uneasy.

  When they had reached the two loading bays, which ran out into the estuary, Kathy and Jackson decided to split up. The area that they were now watching was a far larger area, than that of the front entrance. Both of the soldiers had taken up concealed spots, over hundred feet from one another. As well as both watching the water directly in front of them, Kathy would be watching for any movement on the waterways coming in from the East, and Jackson the West. If either of them saw anything out of the ordinary, out on the surface of the water, they were to signal and call the other for help.

  The remainder of the group were now safely inside the large warehouse, at the far end of the docks. They had found the warehouse on their first full day when searching the area. After three days Gerard and Daryl spent a lot of time inside of it, never revealing to anyone what they were doing inside of it. The pair had been set the task of fortifying the warehouse, so that if needed they could fall back to this position, if their base ever became compromised. Apart from taking time out to build the ramps, Gerard had spent most of the last fortnight here.

  When Gerard let the group into the converted warehouse, each and every one of them stood there open mouthed in awe. They were instantly transfixed by the sight before them, as the work that both of the engineers had put in, was nothing short of amazing. Once through the shuttered entrance, they were greeted by row upon row of metal pike’s. Each pike had been welded to a metal plate, which in turn was then bolted to the floor. The rows of pikes were staggered in height, to create an unsurpassable line of defence. For good measure razor wire had been weaved in and out of each pike.

  The only way over the wall of deadly pikes, was by means of a wooden walkway which could be pulled back, behind the spears once all of the group were back together. As the group walked over the walkway they all stopped to admire the large iron girders, suspended on chains from the ceiling. Jin-Lee stood at the front of the walkway and pointed towards the large steel supports that were mounted in a row, either side of the room. “Shanice, honey do you know what those are for?” She asked the little girl. Judging by Shanice’s grin, Jin-Lee already knew the answer to her question. “Yep, Daddy made us some doinkers.” Shanice giggled. “What are doinkers?” the puzzled Jin-Lee insisted. Again Shanice found the question far too amusing, “When Daddy releases them they will swing across the room and doink all those bad people on their heads.”

  Jin-Lee walked down the other side of the platform and immediately stopped, just in front of the blue tarpauling. Instinctively she knew it was some kind of trap, as apart from its border the tarpauling was covered with thin metal sheets. “It’s okay for you to walk on Jin-Lee.” Gerard called out from the rear of the group. The reassurance from behind her, spurred her forwards, but she stopped after just a few steps, scared of what she was walking on. It took Shanice to pass her and nonchalantly stride across the hundred feet of connected metal plates, and it wasn’t until she reached the far end that the rest of the group followed after her. Once they reached the end of the sea of metal sheets they all seemed to be relieved to be standing on concrete. For the members of the group that were not observant enough to notice all of the generators lined up to the right of them, Shanice soon pointed them out and laughed as she done her best impression of a zombie being electrocuted. Each of them looked around confused, they all assumed they had reached a dead end. For some reason a line of containers had been moved half way across the warehouse, blocking it off. They watched in silence as Gerard approached the area with a boat hook.

  The group watched as he lifted the twelve foot long pole above his head, and then slowly guided the hook above his head. The hook connected with something sticking out from the roof of the nearest container. With a slight tug of the pole a rope ladder dropped down into plain view, for all to see. One by one they climbed up onto the containers roof and then down a ladder that was mounted on the other side. When they were all safely down Gerard showed them the two loaded lifeboats dinghy’s, which sat ready for a quick escape. All they had to do was trigger the shutters at the back, which would give them open access to the estuary. “Now it’s time to get serious.” Gerard informed them. “There are five doorways cut into this side of the containers. Unfortunately five of you have to take up posts now, so that we are ready to give the rest of our people time to escape. I know you are tired, but you can try to sleep in there.” No one questioned him, and followed his instructions, as there were only five adults left amongst them there wasn’t any need for a vote. Each entered their own container and mounted their chosen weapon through the vantage points that had been cut into the other side of the container for them.

  Shanice moved over to the makeshift area just behind the containers. Between the two engineers they had made temporary seats from wooden packing boxes, and laid out some sleeping bags in case the groups stay was a long one. Shanice stood nervously kicked at a packing sticker that was adhered to the floor. “Princess, you know Daddy has to wait the other side to help the others don’t you?” Gerard tenderly asked her. His daughter looked up from the sticker on the floor that she had been kicking at and slowly nodded her head. Gerard bent down, gave her a kiss on her cheek and then hugged her. When he rose and turned to reluctantly walk away from his little girl, she rushed back towards him. ”Daddy wait?” she cried as she hugged him once more. As she backed away from the embrace she could see her father was clearly upset. After taking his hand, she grinned and then told him, “You doink those bad people for all of us if they dare to come in.” Gerard despite his tears managed to laugh, “Don’t worry I will baby. Love you” he told her as he climbed the ladder, not daring to look back as she called back, “Love you too Daddy.”

  Over the last half an hour the crowds of undead, walking around out in the road had definitely grown. There were now so many that neither of the men thought looking over the wall and risk alerting them, was a very good idea; instead they had to make do with watching their shuffling feet through the gap at the bottom of the gates. To Dave it still puzzled him why they seemed to follow one another like a herd of sheep, when it was more than apparent that they couldn’t communicate with each other. The only response that they were capable of expressing to each other was when they sensed prey close to them; it was indeed the only time they showed any level of intelligence.

  Just what Kathy and Morgan expected to happen Dave wasn’t sure, but Dave knew by the way all the Chatsworth staff were reacting that something would. Maybe it was soldier’s intuition or something? The Taxi driver thought to himself. The only visibility that he and Daryl had was between the gaps in the gate and the upper floors of the buildings that faced the entrance, on the other side of the road. So far over the past two weeks sentries had only seen glimpses of the odd zombie as they shuffled past. As yet no sign of life or disturbance had been seen in any of the windows of the surrounding buildings. Dave looked up and down the row of flats, wondering if any survivors were holed up inside one of them. It was then that something caught his eye. Several houses up along the street, he saw a glimmer of light flash on then off. He rubbed at his eyes and tried to focus on the window, to s
ee if he saw the same movement again, or it was simply early morning sunlight reflecting off the glass in the window, playing games with his mind; having been awake all night probably didn’t help. When he saw the glimmer again, for a second time, he nudged Daryl and pointed in the direction of the window. “We’ve got company.” Dave told him.

  Daryl instinctively pulled Dave to the ground, just as a thud cracked the pane of glass, right where Dave had been staring out from. The Taxi driver stiffened as he heard the snipers bullet thud into the wall behind them. If Daryl hadn’t pulled him to the floor at that precise time, Dave realised he would now be dead. He didn’t move from where he lay, he was now frozen by fear. “Dave snap out of it for fuck sake.” Daryl bellowed at his colleague, trying to bring him back into coherency.

  The world still seemed like it was a million miles away, as Dave struggled to deal with the situation, he now found himself in. He could see that Daryl was saying something to him, but he just couldn’t hear him. For some reason the shock of being shot at, had turned off the volume of the outside world. As sound slowly began to return after a few minutes, it first sounded muffled and then the clarity of a second shot hitting the guard post reverberated around in his head; given the choice he would have took the muted world without weighing up the pros or cons. He watched as Daryl turned on his radio, “It is happening Kathy. We’re under sniper fire.” He barked into the handset.

  Glanmire, County Cork, Ireland, 18th July 8:32 GMT

  Ireland had been the supposed second of the designated safe zones, but had succumbed early to the deadly virus when it was released. The first flight out of Stanstead that fateful evening had left for Cork, and most of the passengers on that flight, had come into contact with the invisible vapours released within the departures lounge. Unfortunately the fourth flight to leave the London airport was scheduled to arrive in Dublin, which further compounded the problems that the Irish authorities would soon face. With one flight landing in the South and another landing in the North of the country, it had to deal with two heavily concentrated infection areas at the same time; the virus would eventually sweep inwards from both locations, trapping everyone in the centre.

  Congestion was always a problem in the city of Cork. Every morning, and late afternoon would see the roads come to a complete standstill with the roads infrastructure not being able to cope with the sheer volumes of rush hour traffic. When news of the virus spread, people automatically tried to flee and the small city came to a complete standstill in a matter of minutes. With the roads snarled up the city fell in less than two hours. Some attempted to escape on foot, to the smaller towns on the outskirts of Cork. As more and more left their vehicles the pathways became gridlocked as thousands crawled along at a snail’s pace, it was so slow that many at the back of the mass exodus never made it.

  Three miles from the daily hustle and bustle of the City, lay the relaxed, almost village like town of Glanmire. To many in England, they wouldn’t have dreamed of calling it a town because of its relatively small size. The small town had been carved through the middle of the quaint Irish countryside. An eclectic mix of natural stone walls and old buildings merged with the new, gave the quaint little countryside town an identity all of its own. Nestled in amongst the middle of the community sat the local parade of shops. The majority of the units were made up of various takeaway shops, which worked perfectly in tandem with the local pub situated at the very centre of the area. The main attraction to the shops was the local supermarket, and even now with the town overrun by the undead, it was still the centre of attention. The only difference was that before the outbreak it had drawn the living towards it, so that they could feed upon the delicacies that lined its many shelves and now it drew the zombies to feed upon the handful of survivors that were locked inside of it.

  The store manager had seen what was happening, and read enough on the doomsday blogs that he avidly participated in, to know that he had to act early when the first of the stragglers reached the town on foot. He had decided to close the two large metal shutters across the store front, before the infection got out of hand. With the help of his eleven members of staff they had ushered in over fifty survivors. Luck had definitely been on their side; everyone they allowed in was free from infection. With an abundance of food and water at their disposal they would be able to survive here for a long duration, maybe long enough to be rescued by the authorities, when they finally arrived.

  At first the number of undead outside, on the streets had been few, but as each hour passed that number had grown, until there was no more room for the zombies to enter. For the past two days survivors were no longer able to see past the car park in front of the store, their view was completely blocked by the vast numbers of zombies that banged at the shutters. As a group they had to endure the early days of survivors arriving at the front of the store, seeking refuge, and pleading for help. No matter how many there were, regardless of their age or sex the group just couldn’t run the risk of letting even one of the infected in. To open the metal shutters then would have been pure suicide, it would have created hysteria and a certain stampede; there would be no way of controlling the desperate crowd. Instead they had to listen as the throng of shuffling corpses grew nearer and eventually tore the survivors at the front apart, before feeding upon them.

  There had been no sign of a living survivor for well over a week now, and as the number of undead swelled in size the chance that they would ever see another living soul diminished. A noise that none of the survivors inside of the store had heard for over two weeks suddenly changed all of that.

  The heavy duty working of a vehicles engine roared across the long silent sky; it was a noise that stirred both the survivors in the supermarket, and the zombies that still patiently waited outside into action. With its mechanical parts working overtime the vehicle was definitely getting nearer. Was this the rescue they had all been waiting for? Anticipation of prey caused the sea of dead voices to grow in volume, as the cadavers at the front of the horde, tried in vain to turn around and move towards its direction. As the survivors watched from inside of the store, they stood open mouthed as the wall of cadavers were parted by an unseen force. Gradually the crowd blocking their view was parted right up to the front of the store, but it wasn’t until the tip of the loader clanked against the metal shutter that the survivors realised exactly what had cleared a path through the zombies. Excitement began to spread throughout the livings ranks, they would finally be free; it was a miracle.

  Someone as yet unseen, had gone to the trouble of welding steel fabricated sheets around the frame of the drivers cab. Small slots had been cut out of the sheets to enable the driver to see, and as the machine wasn’t built for speed a constricted view wasn’t an issue for the farmyard tank. A groaning of metal split the air as a large hatch was opened and the driver climbed out onto the roof of the loader. The burly man didn’t seem to be concerned at being surrounded by the undead, as they snapped and snarled at his presence. As the survivors watched him from the store the straight faced man displayed nothing, but contempt for the zombies all around him. Several times he hawked up phlegm from the depths of his throat and spat into the crowd below him. He then bent over and retrieved what looked like an artist’s sketch pad form the drivers cab and instantly began to scrawl a message onto it. When he turned the pad around some of the survivors instantly felt sick that the message said nothing about a rescue; instead the message conveyed to them simply read, “Send someone to the roof now.”

  Padraig Sullivan had managed the store for the last seven years. He loved his job and he loved the community he served. Working within such a small community allowed Padraig to get to know all of his customers, and the fact that he knew everyone in the supermarket now helped, when it came to directing the group. He turned from the front of the store and spoke to the collective assembled in front of him, “I’m going to go up onto the roof and see what this man wants.” Access to the stores roof was made by the way of a ladder mo
unted to the wall inside the stock room. No one had been up onto the roof of the supermarket since the outbreak started, and as Padraig climbed up the metal steps, he wondered why he hadn’t thought of going up there before. There were only two keys to the padlock that secured the hatch, and both were mounted on Padraig’s keychain. As soon as he unlocked the hatch and pushed it outwards, he was temporarily blinded by the summer sunlight as it flooded the open hatch. It took a few minutes for his eyes to adjust to the natural light, as for two weeks the only light they had grown accustomed to, came from the artificial form created by the many banks of lit fluorescent tubes throughout the store.

  What greeted Padraig when he climbed onto the flat roof was a scene of unimaginable horror. For miles, in every direction the undead were tightly packed into one huge jostling crowd. From the front of the store the survivors restricted view, led them to believe that there were hundreds of the cadavers, but now from his elevated position, he could see that their numbers were in the high thousands. Padraig tentatively approached the edge of the roof and looked down towards the front of the store. His eyes met with the angry looking farmer. “You took your bloody time.” The burly man aggressively told him. “I’m sorry, I got here as fast as I could.” “It wasn’t fast enough.” The farmer spat back at him, seemingly growing more agitated by the second. “Like I said I’m sorry. What can I help you with?” The man on the loader pointed back at the large trailer attached to the back of his loader. “I want that filled with food and water.” He told Padraig.