Dead Ahead (20 page)

‘Maybe fewer fish too?’
He switched his eyes to the water beneath them.
Maybe we could catch a fish? Some fresh fish would go down a treat right now! But if the water is contaminated wouldn’t that make the fish into Zombie fish? Hang on....’

“Frank!”

“Yeah, Mate, what’s up?”

“Did you say that that cow you saw turned into a Zombie?”

“
Zombiecow...?
Yeah, it did!”

“Aaaaahhhhhh,
Fuck!
”

“Why? What’s up?”

“Don’t you
see?
If a cow can be turned into one of them, then so can a dog, or a cat, or even a bird, anything can be turned. The world
really is
turning to shit!”

“The zombiecow didn’t exactly look too sturdy on its feet though, it moved like them Husks, all wobbly and that! I don’t think it would be much trouble.”

“Yeah...! But could you imagine a herd of them coming at you? You’d be fucked!”

“Do you think that a bird that had been turned could still fly though?” Brandon asked, “If Husks can’t walk properly, then surely a bird wouldn’t be able to fly properly, never mind in a flock.”

“I would still keep your eyes open for them though son, just in case!” Caleb didn’t really want to put more worries on top of the boy but it was always better to be safe than sorry, especially in these desperate times.

Feelings grew tense aboard the raft. Caleb couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something watching them from within the trees as they floated lazily along the river; the green leaves didn’t seem so bright anymore, his eyes were drawn to the dark corners of the canopy, fully expecting something to dive out and upon them.

Much to his relief, the trees gave way to fields after they had rounded the corner, but that brought with it its own problems. Up ahead there was what looked to be a large farm atop of a hill on their left. Caleb pulled his pack up in an attempt to make his figure look less like a person as the other two slid down in order to hide behind the lip of the raft; it was all pointless, if anything saw them it would be blindingly obvious that it was three people aboard a raft, but still it made them feel more comfortable.

The farm passed slowly by without any incident, and as the river curled round to the left Caleb could see a short hill with a cascade of random rubbish strewn down it, a farm tip, it gave him an idea.

“Try to steer us to the left there, towards the tip!” Caleb whispered.

“Are you joking? It’s far too open here!” Frank replied in a poorly executed whisper.

“There may be something there that we can use as a cover, something that we can hide under!”

Frank’s eyes flicked up and back down, then he grabbed the paddle and tried his best to steer them to the side; he was surprisingly good at it, where Caleb had just spun round in circles, Frank managed to use the paddle as a tiller to point them in the right direction.

On their approach to the bank, Caleb had scanned the tip and already found just what he had in mind; a large blue/black sheet of thick polythene was resting not far from where they hit the bank.

“Wait here, I see something!”

He jumped out of the raft and made a mad dash for the sheet. It was a stupid thing to do, after giving Brand back his axe he had no weapons besides his boot knife on him; if he were to be attacked he would have little chance against an Infected. The tip was littered with old washing machines and various old household items for him to hurdle to get to his prize; it had the distinct smell of something dead about it.

He reached the plastic and gave it a sharp tug, most of it freed up from the ground but one corner just wouldn’t budge, he pulled again, much harder. The plastic sheet gave way, sending him flying backwards, landing hard on the uneven ground. The sheet was free. He got up and folded it roughly, just enough so as to make carrying it easier and not to snag it on any of the rubbish lying around him.

Caleb felt movement at his foot, his leg twitched automatically at the sensation and he looked down to see a mutilated half rat gnawing on his boot, he twitched his leg even harder at the sight, more of a kick really, and the half rat went flying off up the hill. Caleb shuddered at the thought of being gnawed upon.... Wait a minute...! Movement, movement all around him; he could see a mass of small brown bodies writhing between the kitchen appliances and his heart sank, they didn’t move fast, they slothed their way towards him, dragging their half consumed bodies behind them. It was then that Caleb saw the pole lying beside him; not much longer than the average broom handle, but it would do the trick, he tucked the plastic under his arm, picked up the pole and made a run for it.

It was strangely satisfying to feel the small bones crunching beneath his feet as he ran for the raft, stepping on as many of the little bastards as possible. Brandon had been right; they weren’t lithe or spritely as you would imagine a zombie rat to be, they were pitifully slow, of the brain as well as the body, and posed no real threat to him; if they had been infected rats, however, it would be a completely different case; Caleb never would have gotten out of that tip. ‘
Another blessing counted,’
he thought to himself as he reached the raft and climbed aboard, pulling the plastic sheet in after him and pushing them away with his newly found pole.

There was no doubt that the rats would be following them; in this world of uncertainty it was the only thing you could be sure of, the dead would follow the living. Caleb just hoped that the rats were the only things following them.

__________________________

Jon sat uncomfortably on the vehicle floor, tied firmly to the Land Rover bulkhead; he had the space to himself now, apart from the copious amount of supplies and equipment that had been piled in after him. He still begrudgingly wore the hessian sack tied over his head, and it still smelled like animal dung.

He could hear the soldiers in the cab laughing and joking most of the time, the rest of the time they spent complaining about not being allowed to join the others in the other vehicle; the TC 360, or ‘the Thundercunt’ as he had heard them called it.

Jon hadn’t seen it, he hadn’t seen anything since Michaels’ slimy face in the barn, but from what he could make from the soldiers amazement, it was a ridiculously over equipped tank like truck; probably built solely on the taxpayers money, of which not a penny was spared in an attempt to wow moronic American dignitaries. He could hear the buzzing and booming of the guns ahead of them, and the two soldiers in the cab would wonder at the spectacle briefly before returning to their gripes of being left out of the fun.

The small convoy moved slowly as far as Jon could tell, the engine was never put upon any strain and the chunky tyres of the Land Rover rumbled along the tarmac with the sound reminiscent to that of a zipper being slowly undone.

All of these things should have been enough of a distraction for Jon, he should have been able to busy his mind with guesses of where they could be through the smells and sounds around him, but they were nothing compared to the pain in his right wrist; his hand itched and ached, and he longed to rub his wrist with his other hand, but he was bound in such a way that he just couldn’t reach.

‘Just a little demonstration for you boys’
Michaels’ words echoed through Jon’s mind,
‘if you place your hand in here without first having your prints logged into the TC’s computer system, things will not end well for you!’
Jon’s hand started to get itchy again,
‘Now! I would usually use a dummy hand for this demonstration, but as Dr Fosters is the only dummy we have, he will have to do!’
His right arm jumped as he recalled the shutter slamming down and cleaving off his hand, the stump ached as he felt the cold heat of them cauterising the wound, it still stank, he could smell his own burnt flesh down beside him; but the worst of it all, it made him feel
hungry
, it had easily been a day since he had been last fed and he had only been given the most meagre of drinks, his body was so weak that he could no longer hold himself up, he just slumped there, feeling nothing but pain and mourning for his lost hand.

The Land Rover slowed to a sharp stop, flicking Jon’s head and cracking it off of the bulkhead. He must have passed out again. He cursed the world to be awake and returned to this world of pain. The soldiers were shouting again, loudly this time, panicked. Guns started to blaze, from within the cab this time as well as from the TC armoured truck. The soldiers in the cab began to scream, fear filled war cries tore from their throats as they blasted round after round into the advancing enemy, the cries turned to deathly shrieks as the gunfire ceased, just millimetres of steel stood between Jon and the doomed soldiers as their bodies were torn apart by the gluttonous shells of men. Jon could only think of, and fear for, his own mortality in those brief seconds it took for the soldiers shrieks to die; he could still hear the guns of the TC, but they were far off, too far away to be of any kind of saviour to him as he heard deft footsteps climb into the back of the truck.

The creature let out a quizzical high pitch croaking noise as it moved over the piles of equipment and made its way towards the back where Jon sat quaking in terror. Closer it moved, making that horrendous noise in the back of its throat; it was as if it tasted the air around it. Jon could feel the creature come right up to his bagged face and taste his scent, he knew this was the end for him. He held his breath.

The creature let out a bloodcurdling scraw!

Chapter

16

Dead Already

Patrick limped down the road, he knew he was being followed but he didn’t care; he had heard shots being fired from this direction just the night before so he knew there must be survivors down this road, he had to get to them before his pursuers caught up to him. He was desperately hungry; the thought of a meal was the only thing that drove him on, though his bad leg was aching from being forced to take step after agonising step; he pressed himself to move faster along the long winding road. The sun had only just risen above the hills and was casting his shadow far out in front of him making his limbs look long and twisted out of shape.

Things hadn’t always been this bad. When the whole thing had kicked off it had been quite enjoyable really, the whole world seemed to be panicking around him while Patrick remained calm and just did what he had to do, food had been easy to get hold of back then.

There were too many of them now though, you couldn’t go round a corner without bumping into hoards of them lurking around, but it was the fast ones that were really a thorn in his side, they always seemed to be one step ahead of him, wherever he went they had already got there first; he just hoped they hadn’t got to the survivors down this road before him too!

This was just another solo mission for him, quite content in his own company; he had spent most of his time alone. From the moment he had heard those gunshots in the distance he had started marching in this direction; he just had to find those people.

Patrick rounded the corner and paused when he saw the tall red sandstone building peeking out from the trees in front of him, he desperately hoped that this was the place, it must be the place; he had come too far for it not to be! As he made his way slowly closer he could make out the bodies laid out on the ground surrounding the building.

He had made it!

Patrick felt his heart beating strongly in his chest when he saw the light glint off of something in the open window of the building, too strongly; he had never felt it beat this way. A lump grew in his throat as it glinted again. No, it must be the hunger, maybe the thirst? He had to get to that building.

He had to eat!

___________________________

“You’re getting closer,” Jim said excitedly, “That’s one in the chest and one in the throat, just a little higher and you’ll ave’im!”

Cassie looked back down the scope at the solitary figure limping down the road, the light of the sun cast his face and body mostly in shadow, she was glad for that. It had taken a while for her to work up the courage to actually squeeze off the first shot; they were still people, she was still actually shooting a person, only this person was trying to kill her too. Light caught his face as he turned, at least it looked like a him, a he, she couldn’t quite tell. But that face! It wasn’t the face of a man; it was a face of a monster!

Jim leaned over and clicked the adjustment on the scope again “Just you aim right between the eyes this time, I’m sure you will get him!”

Cassie breathed shallow and slow as the image down the scope steadied a little then swept around in slow anticlockwise circles. She hadn’t wanted to do this at first, but Ethan had insisted that she got used to killing these creatures, lest she hesitate at the last minute and get somebody killed. Now that she had it in the scope she had a strange desire to actually kill it, which gave her equal measures of excitement and disgust in her belly. She breathed out and held it, the small cross levelled on the creatures head for a second as it limped along, in and out of the crosshairs. She slowly drew the trigger back as the head moved on target.

The recoil of the silenced rifle made her lose sight of her shot, as it had the other two times, but Jim gave a loud and extended, “He-e-ey!” and patted her on the back, “Good shootin’ Tex! We’ll make a marksman out of you yet! Or should I say markswoman?”

“Marksperson should probably be the correct term,” Cassie said in her teasing way with an eyebrow raised. She had grown quite fond of teasing Jim about his constant casual sexism, but unfortunately he had grown quite resistant to it at the same time.

“Well you get top marks anyway!” he said with a smile.

“I’m going down for a coffee, you want one?” she asked.

“Yeah please, black no sugar! You could send Sarah up for her go if you like when you get down there?”

“I’m sure she can’t wait!” Cassie said, with a knowing smile. Jim chose to ignore the jibe and went back to staring out of the window, watching for Second Gens, or Seconds as they were now calling them; apparently it only took seconds to kill them off, and the First Gens were being called Firsts as you had to take care of them first. She had learned all of this as they sat down for a drink last night after eating, it sounded like Jim had made it up on the spot but the names had stuck now.

Ethan and Jim seemed quite impressed with the security of the hotel, so much so that they were happy to join Cassie and Greg for drinks; Sarah had spent most of the night with the girl, Zoe, upstairs but had joined them late when Zoe had fallen asleep. Cassie hadn’t drank much, just enough to take the edge off, as had everyone else except Greg, who had stayed for ‘just one more’ when everyone else had gone to bed.

When Cassie reached the kitchen she found Sarah, Ethan and Zoe already there drinking coffee.

“And right on queue; this is Cassie.” Sarah announced.

“Hi Cassie,” Zoe said with a broad smile; she looked completely different from the night before, her hair had been brushed smooth, her face washed and she was wearing a clean set of clothes. The way that Sarah looked at the girl reminded Cassie of the fact that Sarah had spoken to her about her own daughter on several occasions, and her fears for her safety.

“Pleased to meet you, Zoe, how are you feeling, honey?” Sarah said with a smile.

“Much better thank you. It’s nice to have some.... normal people to be around for a change.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t exactly say normal.” Ethan said with a chuckle.

“Well, still, it’s nice!” Zoe’s cheeks blushed as she looked at Ethan, probably recalling holding him at gunpoint last evening.

“Could you take this up to Jim please, Sarah?” Cassie asked stirring the cup of hot black coffee, pouring in just a little cold water before handing it to her, “He says he is ready for you!”

“Ready for me to what...?” Sarah asked, flustered, it was her turn to blush this time.

“He wants you to try some target practice with the rifle, to get you used to killing the zombies!”

“What, now...? I don’t think that....”

Ethan interrupted, with a soothing tone, “If you could just take his coffee to him, he can explain it to you much better than we can. I’m sure he will be very gentle with you.”

Sarah just nodded and headed up stairs with confidence, there was a definite bond growing between her and Jim, which is probably what Sarah feared the most.

“Where’s Greg?” Cassie asked, recalling that he wasn’t present.

“Still in his pit....” Ethan said bitterly, the night of casual drinks obviously not having had much effect on his disliking of the man, “I
was
going to wake him up, but I think the less time I spend around him the better.”

“Oh! I
do
wish that you two could get along.”

“Some people just don’t
click
, Cassie.”

“And some people
do
!” Zoe said quietly before quickly leaving the room. Cassie assumed that she meant Sarah and Jim, though she wasn’t sure that Zoe had seen them together yet. As Zoe left she gave a small yelp and Greg burst through the two way kitchen door.

“Morning, Greg!” Ethan shouted, just loud enough so as to be an irritant to Greg’s painfully obvious hangover. His face was deathly white apart from two red eyeballs peeking through the thin slits of his eyelids, his hair was tussled and he stank of alcohol.

“Is it?” he said with a sneer, “Can’t say I noticed.” He made his way over to the kettle, which was still steaming, and made himself a coffee. “Bah! UHT milk...!”

“Feel free to go outside and milk yourself a cow, mate.”

“Why don’t you just go and...”

“Greg!” Cassie interrupted before Greg said something he would most probably regret, “How long do you think we have to get to Sellafield? Before it is too late I mean.”

“Huh? Umm.... Let’s see....”

“Why don’t you go check on Jim and Sara?” Cassie whispered to Ethan while Greg pondered.

“....Michaels locked me out of the system four days ago....”

Ethan raised an eyebrow at Cassie’s request of him, “I mean go and make sure we’re not surrounded by zombies,” she said, “Go and make yourself useful.”

“....so he booted the system three days ago, and it’s eight till it reaches critical mass....”

“Five days then?” Cassie asked.

“Yeah...! Five including today; we should get there in plenty of time, we’re not too far from the coast now, there’s no rush.”

“No rush? Don’t you think we should get there as fast as possible? It won’t be that easy with an army of the undead standing between us.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic, Cassie.” he said slurping his coffee, “We are making good progress as it is.”

“Good progress?” Greg was even starting to get on
her
nerves now, “We have only come half way in two days and we have lost
five
people! And you call that good progress?

“I’m not one of those five people, Cassie; of course I call that good progress. And if you think we will all be dead within two days then what is the point in stopping the meltdown anyway, will it matter to us if we are dead?”

“We won’t be dead though will we? We will be undead! You don’t know what those poor people out there feel, how would you like to be trapped in one of their bodies slowly suffering the effects of a nuclear meltdown?”

“Hmm.... Interesting theory! I will have to think about that one. But then I wasn’t the one blowing out their brains this morning, was I?” and with that he sauntered out of the door, slowly sipping his coffee.

Cassie was left reeling from the conversation. How could the man be so callous? Surely he could see that time was of the essence! She sat down on one of the tall stools and lost herself in her own conflicting thoughts for as long as she could stand them. Was she a hypocrite? Should they just turn tail and run as far from Sellafield as possible, forgetting the place existed? She thumped her balled up fists down on the hard stainless steel worktop.

“No! We are doing the right thing here!” She said firmly to herself and marched out of the door in chase of Greg.

She didn’t get far though, as she left the kitchen Ethan ran by her talking loudly into his walky talky.

“Ok, Jim, I’m on my way up...!”

“What’s happening?” she asked anxiously.

“We have incoming!” He shouted without turning back. Cassie followed him upstairs, though she didn’t know exactly how much use she would be when she got there.

“What we got?” Ethan asked as he entered the overly floral bedroom that Jim and Sarah were in. Jim was leaning out of the window with his rifle up at his eye

“A whole load of Firsts and some Seconds in between!” Jim didn’t stop firing and reloading the rifle as he spoke.

“Can you hit the Firsts?”

“I’m trying, but it ain’t easy...”

“How are you for sub rounds?”

“Plenty for now, but they won’t last forever.”

“Let the Deadites get to the door.” Zoe said loudly from the doorway in her soft Irish drawl.

“Deadites? What do you mean let them to the door? Jim shouted back without looking, confused.

“The Deadites! The fast ones! Let them reach the front door!”

“Are you fuckin’ mad?” he shouted back but she was gone, pulling Cassie along with her.

“Where are we going?” Cassie asked as she was led down the stairs.

Once in the entrance hallway Zoe led her to the front door which had been caged off from the outside with a strong metal grate, it was made of long thick steel wire and crossed to make a series of squares at around four inches each.

“Wait here,” Zoe told her, “You will want to run, but don’t, I need you to stay here and keep their attention. They can’t get through the bars!

“What?” Cassie asked, not quite believing what she was being asked to do.

“Just keep them at the door!” Zoe shouted as she disappeared back up stairs.

A loud bang came from the doorway as a First slammed in to the grill. Cassie spun round to see the creature leering at her; it let a disgusting gurgling screech escape its lips as it reached for her. The girl was right, Cassie did want to run, she wanted to run and never stop, her body forced her to take a step back and the creature shrieked again. Another monster slammed into the grill squashing the first one into it with a horizontal bar being pushed into its mouth, its teeth snapped shut over the bar; Cassie couldn’t draw her eyes away as it gnawed on the hard steel shattering more of its teeth with every bite sending white flecks engulfed in black blood dripping from its chin.