Dead Ahead (24 page)

The Infected hunched down, preparing to leap for them. Caleb saw the tension build in its legs and raised the rifle. He managed to squeeze out a hail of bullets before it jumped, though he missed the head he peppered its body with holes, the Infected lost momentum for its jump and only managed to land amongst the Husks floating aimlessly around in the water, more husk landed atop of the thrashing Infected; thankfully, it couldn’t swim, it couldn’t seem to grasp the art of propulsion through water and so just thrashed around in it violently.

Caleb’s glee at seeing the infected falter was short lived as more of them appeared at the pier edge, they didn’t pause for thought, they quickly hunched ready to pounce. Caleb raised the rifle and squeezed the trigger hard, he emptied every bullet he had at his disposal at low level into the hoard of vile creatures; he didn’t stop till the magazine was completely empty.

All but one of the Infected were down and into the water, some thrashing and some lying still amongst the Husks. It launched its self from the pier in a great ark towards the raft, time slowed for Caleb as it reached the precipice of its jump and descended towards him, at the full extent of its jump Caleb could see that it had been a tall thin man, his black suit jacket and tie flapped in the wind as he fell towards the raft. Caleb’s hands groped for a weapon behind him, but he couldn’t take his eyes away from the creature that looked as if it were going to land on top of him.

Gunshots cracked in his ears from behind him. Two bullets hammered into the shoulder of the creature, and then another ripped through its cheek, exposing a set of freshly shattered teeth. The third bullet tore a hole in its head the size of a pond coin, and in mid air the creature went limp. It splashed down, belly first, into the water just behind the raft with an almighty slap.

Caleb looked to the boy, who was laid still holding the pistol in the air with two hands, the gun was shaking. Caleb shuffled over to him, ducking under the pistol and laying a hand on the barrel for him to drop the weapon, the barrel was still warm from the friction of the shots and it burnt his hand just a little as he touched it; it reminded him to keep the rifle slung over his shoulder to keep it from burning a hole in the raft floor. Caleb took the pistol from the boy and put it in one of the side pockets of Frank’s pack.

They started to paddle towards the island; there were a few islands in the middle of Lake Windermere, but the largest had a great round house built on it. Caleb was desperately hoping that the island would be zombie free, so that they could rest a while, rest and think; he had no idea where they were going to go from here. Who knows, maybe the island would be safe enough for them to spend a few days there, maybe more?

Paddling wasn’t easy; it took them longer than he had hoped, even though a light breeze was with them and pushed them gently towards the island, they were still desperately tired when they got there, and soaked to the skin. They dragged the raft up the banking, into the trees and collapsed down beside it.

The island was covered in trees, it gave them good cover but who knows what could be lurking through the dense foliage, Caleb knew the large house was on the southern end of the island; he remembered seeing it while on holiday in Windermere years ago, but the island was privately owned so he was never able to get up close to it, he guessed today would be his chance.

Brandon lay face down on the brush with his arms folded under his forehead, while Caleb laid face up staring into the wide blue sky, a gentle breeze caressed his face, sounds of the water softly lapping the shore, wind gently rusting the leaves in the trees, and the soft twitter of birdsong seemed distant in his ears as he listened to his heartbeat and breathing gradually slow; but more than that, he was listening for movement behind him.

Eventually he sat up, prompting the boy to do the same. Caleb went to Frank’s pack and dug out some more bullets for the pistol and rifle; he reloaded the rifle and slung it back over his shoulder, then loaded the pistol with more rounds and handed it back to Brandon.

“That’s the safety on. You know where the safety is, right?”

“Yeah...! It’s this bit here!” the boy said solemnly.

“That’s it.” Caleb said as he screwed the shaft back on to the Naginata, “But as you said, we don’t want to use them unless we absolutely have to. We don’t want any more of those Infected finding us!”

“I think it’s a bit late for that!” Brandon said pointing back to Windermere.

Caleb turned to look back where they had paddled from. It looked like every resident of Windermere was out lining the shores of the lake waving over to them, the creatures must have heard the car then watched them paddling out to the island; all just standing there watching them, like a dog would stare into a butchers window, Caleb found it quite unnerving.

“C’mon, let’s see if we are alone here.” Caleb said, turning his back to the hoard. Brandon tucked the pistol into his belt and hefted his hatchet; they then each grabbed a side of the raft and dragged it towards the south end of the island.

Maybe it was just that Caleb was expecting something to jump out at him that had him so on edge, maybe it was the blatant animosity reeking from his son that was making him nervous; but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched, not by the thousands of Husks lurking across the water, but something else, there was something on the island with them.

The manor house, as it turned out to be, loomed up ahead of them; the house was at least three stories high and perfectly round, apart from four huge pillars that reached up to the second floor at the front, which was topped with a great stone triangle with a round window in it, the roof was domed apart from a squat cylindrical tip to it that made it look like a pot lid.

They dropped the raft at the end of the garden with a loud ‘thunk’ and Caleb stopped to listen, the constant hiss of the raft being dragged along the grass and pathways had been hiding any sound of movement around them while they moved and it had made him uneasy, but all he could hear now was the light breeze rustling the leaves in the trees.

“Not bad eh...?” Caleb said, hoping that Brandon would see the potential in the place.

“Do you think it’s empty?” was his only reply, again in the patented monotone.

“I doubt it! If I lived across the water, this is the first place I would come!”

“So what makes you think they will let us in?”

“Well it’s fucking huge for a start! That and I’m sure they would be happy to see some new survivors too.”

“Yeah...! Cause
you’re
a real people person! Aren’t you?” Brandon bit the words off as he said them and marched off towards the house when he was done; he left Caleb standing there aghast; there was real hatred in his eyes. But what did Caleb think was going to happen; did he think it would all go away so soon? It was never going to go away!

He caught up with Brandon and let the comment slide. They walked across the grass and up a set of stone steps on the left hand side, past a bright white stone statue sitting in a recess built into the manor house and up to the front door. Caleb cupped his hands and tried to peer into one of the side windows of the door; it was dark inside, too dark. He turned the handle and the door swung gently inwards revealing a grand hallway running into the bowels of the house, doors led off in every direction and half of them were open.

“Hello?” Caleb shouted through the doorway, “Anybody home?” Brandon looked at him as if he had lost his mind, “If there are any of those fuckers in there, I would rather they came at us here, where we can see them coming; if we make plenty of noise, any Infected in there will come to us or start banging on closed doors to get to us, I’d rather know where they are!”

“What about the husks?”

“Husks are slow and stupid, we can deal with husks!” He answered confidently; the boy didn’t seem impressed by his bravado though.

But nothing came thundering down the hallway, nothing was rattling on the doors to get at them, the house was silent.

“Here! You take the rifle, I’ll take the pistol!”Caleb said, gently closing the door, “It’s gonna be tight and dark in here and I don’t think this is going to be much use,” he propped the Naginata up against the doorway, “I’ll use the hand torch and you can use the head one; but just be careful with that thing, it has quite a kick to it; safety’s off!”

Caleb started making his way systematically through the house with the pistol out in front of him and the torch held in his other hand crossed over his wrist; just like he had seen Moulder and Scully do in so many episodes of The X Files, Caleb had a small chuckle to himself at that
‘I’d like to see Scully try to deny the existence of zombies on this one’
he thought to himself, But, again, the mirth was short lived.

The ground floor was lavishly decorated in the most outlandishly hideous manner, with overly bright colours throughout but in an almost Victorian style, the house must have been owned by some sort of aristocracy for only the inbred royals of England could afford to have such terrible taste. The ground floor was clear though it had obvious signs that the place had been in use fairly recently; the kitchen still had pots on the stove full of rotting food that had seemingly been prepared for a large group of people but had never been served; there were other signs of life throughout, unfinished coffee cups with thick white skin in them and gold rimmed plates in piles with crumbs on them, it all made Caleb feel quite hungry. The last room they checked on the ground floor was a grand dining room decked out in a most ridiculously bright purple and gold/yellow, the curtains and chairs were made from the same yellow spotted purple fabric and the massive rug that sat under the huge dining table that has seating for twelve was purple too; the dining table was set out for a meal though it had never reached the plates, probably the vile concoction in the pots in the kitchen, but there were bottles of wine spread across the table and many of the glasses were full, four of the twelve chars around the table had been knocked to the ground. But most importantly, the dining room had a nice small fireplace built into the far wall and three large windows that they could escape out of.

“We should leave our packs here, this will be the room we run to if we get in trouble; we can slide any one of these pieces of furniture in front of the door should we need to, and there are two sofas there we can use for beds. The people who were here left in a hurry, and you know what that means; they may still be here!” the boy dropped his pack on the floor without a word and held the grip of the rifle tightly; the house had an eerie feel to it, they could both sense it!

As they made their way up the dark ornately carved staircase to the second floor the smell of rotting flesh hit them and they both pulled their sleeves across their noses; you would think that they would have got used to the smell by now but it was always just as repulsive as the first time it hit you, the smell of death never gets old.

Caleb turned at the twist in the stair to peek down the hallway as he crept up the softly squeaking stairs. A single body lay on a carpet stained black with blood. Caleb tucked the pistol into his belt and drew the commando knife from his boot, he crept silently up to the body and slid the blade sharply into the back of its neck and into its brain, he gave the blade a good wiggle to be certain but the body didn’t move a muscle, it was always better to be safe than sorry.

Through the rooms of the first and second floors they found more bodies in various states of despair, strewn across beds and carpets, but none of them active, no Infected and no Husks. The walls and doors were peppered with gunshot and there were obvious signs of a struggle; whatever happened in this great mansion, it was well and truly over.

Caleb led Brandon up a final set of thin stairs at the back of the building, leading up into the domed roof space. By this time Caleb was well and truly knackered and just wanted to tramp back down the hundreds of stairs and into the dining room where he could light a fire and get dry again; he was aware of his laboured breathing as he reached for the door handle and it exploded in front of him, sending splinters of wood deep into the skin of his hand.

Caleb reeled at the pain shooting through his hand and wrist, but still found the momentum in his reaction to lean back and kick through the shattered wooden door; as the door burst open the bottom hinge cracked from the timber frame and the door hung askew, scraping loudly across the bare floor boards to a stop. Caleb only just managed to see the dark figure in the gloom of the loft as he disappeared round the corner; dust motes drifted through the stagnant air as Caleb gave chase, the room smelled damp and musky, like that of a caged animal; there was also the distinct smell of human waste, which strangely reminded Caleb of his parents house; whoever this person was that he was following, had plainly been locked away in the loft for quite some time, too afraid to face the horrors throughout the house, and of course the dismal fate of the world beyond.

“Wait!” Caleb called after them, “Oi, wait!” but the figure disappeared away round the curve of the circular loft. Caleb traced their path to find them cowering in a dark corner between an old trunk and a heavily soiled sofa; Caleb held a hand up to Brandon’s chest to keep him back from the obviously disturbed individual and out of the firing line.

“It’s
ok
, we won’t hurt you!” Caleb said as softly as he could.

“I won’t
do
it! I
won’t
become one of them!” The man cried in a thick posh English accent. Caleb could just make out his grubby yellow looking shirt in the darkness of the loft, he couldn’t make out the man’s legs at all but his knees looked to be hunched up to his chest; he was holding his shotgun vertically, butt to the floor; Caleb readied himself by tightening his grip on the pistol, should the barrel be pointed in his direction.