Dead Ahead (16 page)

It was hard to make out, it looked like a tide of filthy water flowing between and over the cars far in front of them, but as it drew closer it was easy to see that it didn’t move like water, it moved more like....

“First gen’s...!” Cassie cried out.

“Shit! Buckle up people, it’s about to get bumpy!” Ethan warned. True to his word he changed gears and started to smash his way through the abandoned cars in an attempt to reach the exit before the first gens did. There were so many of them. Scores of them swarmed towards them, but why would they be here, and why so many? They couldn’t have been following them, could they? Surely that would register a certain level of intelligence, and if they were intelligent, could they learn?

Some of the first gens started to drop to the ground, but only a few, soon the sniper rifle was handed down from above and the roof cannon started to blaze. More of them fell, but not enough, closer they came. It looked like they would both meet at the turning at the same time, but the turning was just as clogged as the road they were on. Just before the junction, Ethan called for Jim to close the hatch and swung the trick to the right, crashing it through a thicket at the side of the road. Several of the fist gens crashed into the side of the husky as he turned, but were unable to gain purchase, leaving thick coagulated blood smearing the windows.

The truck bounced through the rough terrain surrounded by bushes and trees. Ethan did his best to avoid getting trapped between them but on several occasions had to reverse his way out of dead ends created by the thick brush. The First Gens could still be seen occasionally through the trees behind them.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, a clearing appeared up ahead of them just past some thick bushes. The truck burst through them and careered right into one side of a poorly constructed wooden house and out of the other. A shower of splintered wood surrounded them as they landed on the road in front of the house leaving only piece of paper trapped under the windscreen wiper bearing the insignia of Centre Parcs.

As they bounced down the road of the urbanised forest getaway they were greeted by the short clad decaying bodies of its guests roaming the streets.

“Oh my god....” Sarah whispered in the back.

“I know,” Greg said staring at a group of the ex-holiday reps writhing within a tangle of hire bicycles, “Those dead eyes, the expressionless faces, it’s like they haven’t changed at all!”

At speed they followed the signs to the exit and burst through the gates on to the road ahead, luckily the traffic had thinned enough for them to negotiate their way through easily enough to escape their pursuers. But would they ever be able to escape them fully? Cassie didn’t think so. In fact, she was sure they were picking up more and more pursuers the further on they went. How far would the sound of one vehicle travel amidst this vast emptiness and silence? She had to stop herself from actually working it out, she was sure that the answer wouldn’t please her.

Cassie satisfied her curiosity in wonder of how quickly the world around her had fallen apart, now that it was devoid of humans and all of their activities. Uncut lawns were thriving in the sunshine as a light breeze tussled their blades; vast quantities of rubbish, also caught in the breeze, flowed across streets; in only a matter of weeks, weeds had started growing through untraveled roads and pavements. There was a quiet serenity to it all, as nature slowly reclaimed that which was once stolen from it. How long would it be before it was all gone? How long until it was buried under mountains of dirt like the ruins of ancient Greece? Would people in the future speculate over how humans used to live, as they do now...?

....As they did. Would there even be anyone in the future to find it?

A sombre mood settled into the Husky. No one spoke; they just stared out of the windows as the wretched world passed them by. The Dead filled the streets to watch them pass like a morbid parade, and as they passed, the Dead followed; some slow, some fast, but each and every one of them had hunger in their eyes.

Eventually they found farm land in which they would at least have a chance to leave the Dead behind, but each time they seemed to be making headway they would encounter a river or impassable dip in the land and have to double back to find a road or bridge to cross, it was as if nature its self was against them. They had no choice but to return to the roads.

Ethan slowly rolled the truck to a stop some good distance in front of a motorway underpass, cars could be seen above the railing all packed tightly together.

“What’s up E?” asked Jim.

“I dunno, I just got a bad feeling about this.”

“Can we go round?” asked Sarah.

“This is the M6, we either go under or across it, and I have an even worse feeling about going across it.”

“We go under then! Let’s go!” said Jim.

Ethan nodded his head, he looked more than unconvinced. Despite his misgivings he floored it towards the tunnel.

As soon as the engine roared into life Cassie could see movement above the motorway railings, a
lot
of movement. Bodies started to tumble over the railings and down onto the road ahead, landing awkwardly in a heap but still trying to drag their broken carcases toward the oncoming vehicle. They were piling up before them; some started rolling down the grassy embankments to the side of the underpass too, if they didn’t make it through the pile of corpses they would be surrounded.

Bodies continued to fall.

Still they accelerated forward; Ethan started to scream at the heap in front.

Cassie braced for the impact as vile faces rushed towards her.

BOOM!

The Husky leapt into the air as it smashed into the wall of contorted bodies. Blood and bones erupted around them blacking out the windows in the dark tunnel enticing a shriek from Sarah. They bounced back on to tarmac as Ethan desperately tried to clear the windscreen enough to see through the smeared glass; all they could see was a deep red blur ahead of them where the tunnel exited. The wheels screeched on the road as Ethan tried to control the truck; crashing over some debris in the middle of the road. The window cleared. The truck straightened out. They were almost through.

Bodies began to rain down in front of them. Ethan tried to exit to the left hand side where the pile seemed thinnest, but they didn’t have the same speed that they had had before. Cassie felt the seatbelt tighten around her as they hit. The same dark red enveloped them as they lifted into the air again, but the interior was soon lit in bright crimson as the sun hit them. They landed much softer this time, but as they did a great rattling thumping came from the roof.

“What the fuck was that?” shouted Jim.

The window started to clear before them to reveal a large pile of cars directly in their path. Ethan tried to swerve to the left to avoid them but slammed into the side of a blue Van, sending two objects flying off of the roof and in to the van, they both landed in a heap on the bonnet of the Husky.

The heap began to move.

Ethan threw the Husky into reverse, grinding the gears as he did. But the two First Gens were already up and coming at the windscreen. One of them tumbled back and off of the bonnet as they flew backwards but the other managed to grab a still sweeping windscreen wiper and hang on.

There was a thump from the back of the truck this time.

“Shit! There’s more!” shouted Ethan, looking in his wing mirrors. He ground the gears once more finding first and shot away as fast as the Husky could, still with the First Gen on the bonnet trying to punch its way through the glass.

“There’s one on the roof....” Shouted Jim.

A high pitch scream came from Sarah.

“....and one on the left....” Jim continued, almost casually.

Ethan weaved the truck through the streets trying to shake them off, bumping over pavements and smashing through fences. He aimed the truck so as to pass tightly by a telegraph pole on the left and remove the First Gen on the side, he managed to do so but not without connecting heavily with the back of the husky jolting the vehicle so much that the creature on the top was left dangling from the back for a while, but not for long, it soon managed to heave its self back on to the roof.

“I’m sorry folks, but I’m going to have to do something drastic here!” Ethan shouted over the battering against the windscreen.

He pointed the truck towards some high fencing which looked to have a deep dip in the land behind it, there were wires stretched across in front of them; he was aiming straight for the railway lines. Before Cassie could say anything they were bouncing off of the kerb, through the fence and were air born again.

The cables above passed close to the roof of the Husky, snatching away the First Gen that had seen fit to take up residence there, the other one gripped on tightly, riding the truck like a bull, rage strewn across its face.

Cassie felt the time spent in the air stretch before her; blue skies and fluffy white clouds gave way to lush green trees beyond the First on the bonnet, which in turn gave way to the light grey gravel on the rail tracks.

The grey chips exploded as the Husky made contact with them, hurling the First from the bonnet. The Husky bounced in the air and landed again hard on top of the creature, tearing it to shreds beneath them and rattling across the tracks. They came to rest on the other side of the rails, steam rising from the bonnet.

“I can’t decide whether that was the smartest or stupidest thing I have ever seen,” Greg said from the back whilst rubbing his neck.

“Probably the stupidest,” Ethan said as he tried to turn over the engine, it coughed and spluttered but refused to start. “Definitely the stupidest,” he turned the key again and the engine reluctantly roared into life, though it didn’t sound very healthy as it did, the truck limped away with a loud screech and an incessant clunking noise from the front right; which even to Cassie’s limited knowledge of engines, didn’t sound like it could be fixed in a hurry.

They travelled down the tracks fully conscious of the fact that they were still being pursued, the Husky could only make it to thirty miles per hour without it sounding like it was going to rattle its self to pieces, and that was only once they had reached tarmac. Ethan took a side road and rolled up to an old abandoned building, the sign outside said Shap Abbey. They hid around the back with a morbid view of countless gravestones stretching out before them.

As soon as Ethan shut off the engine he popped the bonnet and everyone jumped out of the truck to stretch their tired and battered limbs. Jim slid quickly underneath the front of the truck while Ethan opened the bonnet and released a wave of steam.

“Well it looks like the axle has gone down here,” Jim’s voice came from below.

“Yeah, I thought as much. The radiator is buggered up here and we have some fractures to the chassis. This puppy is going nowhere in a hurry!” said Ethan.

“Can it be fixed?” asked Sarah worriedly.

“I’m afraid not. We have to make a decision,” Ethan said, “and judging by how bad my last decision was, I am going to put it to the group.

“The way I see it we have two options; we can either cut back into the town just down there to the south east to look for another vehicle, or we can gather as much equipment as we can and head off into the hills to the west on foot.”

“On foot?” asked Greg. “Those things will catch up to us and kill us! I vote for another truck”

“I don’t believe they will Greg!” Cassie put in. “I think they have been following the sound of the truck, that’s why they found us! If we head off in an easterly direction from here that will throw them off course from the way we arrived. We should escape them!”

“And what if you’re wrong?” Greg asked with more than a little heat in his voice.

“If she’s wrong then we shoot them!” Ethan said defensively. “I’m with Cassie.”

“Well there’s a surprise!” Greg muttered under his breath only loudly enough for Cassie to hear.

“I’m up for a walk!” said Jim as he headed for the back of the Husky.

“Me too!” said Sarah as she followed him.

“It’s settled then,” said Ethan, “we had better move fast, they won’t be far behind us!”

As they unpacked the back of the Husky Cassie soon realised that they had far more equipment to carry than she first assumed; there were five large packs, all equally heavy. Ethan and Jim quickly sorted through the packs, taking several items out of two of them and placing them in two of the others. The two lightened packs were given to Cassie and Sarah, the two heavier ones Ethan and Jim took, and the untouched one went to Greg; who harrumphed and hawed as he put it on his back. They weren’t light, as Cassie put hers on her back Greg raised an eyebrow to her to suggest that she had made a mistake, it only proved to settle her resolve.

They headed east, through the graveyard.

_________________________

‘What a bunch of useless ingrates!’

Michaels watched from the passenger seat of the Land Rover as the soldiers swept the area, taking down anything that moved, they ran this way and that, reminiscent of headless chickens, between two large grey tin buildings. Unfortunately the area had been deserted, which made it quite easy to break in to, but it didn’t have any soldiers remaining at their posts that he could take command of.