Great Bitten: Outbreak (16 page)

“Oh really?”

“Yes. And… and you tricked me!”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Yeah, anyone that’s going to try to take over is going to get a megaphone and ask nicely. I can’t see anyone tricking anyone. It wasn’t as if the first thing people did when this broke out was start looting shops, stealing cars and stealing boats. If people were nice and this was a normal situation with law-abiding people
Oz
, I would be on my sister’s boat halfway over the Atlantic. But we’re in the middle of a national disaster,
Oz
. They’ve declared a state of capital emergency,
Oz
. People are murdering. If they want to take this pier they will not hesitate to do so.”

I looked around me. Women were getting teary-eyed. The men looked shocked. Austin looked furious,
beet-red with anger and still horrendously embarrassed. He wasn’t a leader. These people may have been safely behind a high iron barrier, but they had the fight and teeth of a baby behind a stair gate. Anything that came for them would get them.

“So what are you suggesting
Rambo?”

“Look Austin, it’s done
well here. You’ve done well. These people are alive, they are fed, and they are clean, which is more than can be said for a lot of the country. But you need to think of more than that. I mean, look how many people are in this room right now. Did you call everyone in here?”

“Yes. I have done since we all first got in here. Everyone has to know what’s going on.”

“So what’s wrong with passing messages on? Who’s watching the gate?”

“Oh t
here’s always someone watching the gate.”

“
One person
? Does he have 360 vision? A gun? A loudspeaker for if something goes wrong? What if he falls and gets hurt? Can he see the whole pier from where he is?”

“Whoa whoa whoa, who are you
exactly - Columbo? What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a journalist.”

“Ha. And you think you can run this better than I’ve done so far?”

“Well, he
is
right Austin.” Of all the people around us, Pete was the first to sound out support for my worries. “We have only got one man out there. And it’s Sammy. Sammy doesn’t even have great vision. And he’s a little bit deaf. I’m not too sure about the water any more either. That makes sense. And sending us all in one big run? What did you think we were going to do? Pop around in a truck to each shop and get a bit of what we need?”

“Well I… what else are we meant to do”?

“Plan it for a start!”

The murmurs grew in to a burgeoning swell of support for me. Austin looked lost.

“All right all right! Everyone else out, back to the chores. Have you still got your lists? Because this is our first full day together and we need it to go well. I want Warren and his folk to stay in here. And you, Pete. You too Andrew.”

Everyone shuffled out reluctantly. I got some pats on the shoulder, and an enthusiastic thumb-up from Lana.
Austin waited until they had gone. He even leant his head down the stairs to make sure of it. Then he righteously slammed the door shut and pushed himself in to my face. He poked me in the sternum and opened his mouth to start yelling at me. Pete and Andrew pushed him back. Carla got right back in his face. Apparently no one pushes at her older brother.

“All right princess. Get the hell off me, you two. Whose side are you on anyway?”

“Sides? This isn’t about sides, Austin. Get a grip! This lad has pointed out too many things we didn’t think about. No one’s in charge, you said that yourself. What’s got you so het up anyway?”

“Hold on
Pete, you wait there,” Andrew wailed. “He fancied himself the leader. Didn’t you? Oz? You wanted to run the show! This isn’t the movies Austin. We want to stay alive. And if we’re not all thinking about the right things, then we need to accept information. We need to round table everything together and we need to be straight and steady.”

“Okay so no one else was stepping up. What did you expect me to start thinking? I’m only human! And forgive me, but last night this asshole throws himself
through the gate and threatens to shove a hammer infected with blood down my throat. What do you expect me to do?”

“You weren’t going to let us in, Austin. There were zombies behind us. We’d just lost one of our own. What did you expect me to do?”

“You could have asked?”

“We did ask you, you cock. You just wanted to let in my sexy girlfriend. And what did you want to do there? What kind of show did you actually want to run here,
Oz
?”

“I told you already Rob.”

“Rick.”

“Whatever. I told you. That was a joke. And it’s not the point we’re talking about. We’re talking about your brother in law being a dickhead and trying to take over.”

“I’m trying to keep myself alive, chubby. Yes, you heard. Myself. However, it just so happens I’m on this pier with the rest of you. So you get to benefit from the ideas I use to preserve myself. Sounds selfish, huh? Well at least I’m being honest. I don’t want to die. I sure as fuck don’t want to die on a shitty little pier in some retirement town surrounded by diseased people and emaciated zombies, all because we didn’t think things through! I’m not taking over. I just want to stay human. So let’s stop this little circus alright! Let’s just talk! There is no plan at the moment beyond “get stuff”. From where? Who? And when? What’s our long term plan? We know the government aren’t good for anything, so what’s our long term plans for survival? How long can we stay on the pier before it becomes intolerable?”

“Slow down. We can’t answer all those questions at once!”

“Maybe not” I retorted “but we need to think about them all. Important things first.” I was proud of myself here. I’d actually been thinking about Thomas. “Who’s Mary? She a nurse?”

“Yeah. A nurse from the local hospital. Lucky we’ve got her really. Quite a few of us rocked in with some nasty injuries.”

“Okay. You’ve told us some bits and pieces of what she wants, but we need a list. Someone needs to go to her and get a full inventory. Medicine and accessories, and volume. We need to plan the volume for the amount of time we’re thinking about staying here.”

Carla chipped in quickly
“That makes sense. I can do that. I’ll do that now actually. I can sense the rest of this turning into man-stuff. That is, if I’m okay to leave? Gentlemen?”

No one tried to stop her. I sure as hell wouldn’t. Not for quite a lot of money.
She wound her arm around Rick and gave him a peck on the cheek before slipping out of the door. I heard her feet on the metal stairs and padding away on the decking. I turned to the rest of the men. We were in a circle now. It felt more stable. Austin was looking me in the eye, and he looked calmer. Pete and Andrew looked open. They both looked interested in what we had to say. I decided not to be too much of a cowboy and opened the floor up to suggestions.

“Well, what else is important after medical supplies?”

Austin and Andrew shrugged and turned to Pete, who in turn scuffed his feet on the ground. Rick sighed. “Do we know exactly who we’ve got here? And what their skills are? Except for Mary, that is. I mean, didn’t someone say the guy you had on watch couldn’t see very well?”

We spent the next hour listing our residents and their physical capabilities. Rick was sent off to find out if they had any special talents we should know about. It’d be a good way for him to really get to know people – then I could find out his opinion without listening to Austin. We were about to launch in to some kind of plan to order our priorities for a supply run when Rick burst back through the door.

“I… I don’t know if this is normal or not. Could you… come and take a look at this?”

We filtered out, undeniably intrigued. My jaw dropped at what I saw. “Is that the swarm from the town?”

“I can’t think what else it might be. What’s got their attention, d’you think?”

The tide was low and the bursting sun had cleared any low lying cloud. This afforded us a long view of the pebbly beach. At least, it would have been a long view if the exposed beach wasn’t packed with the wandering dead. To a man they all seemed like the slow ones, but they were so tight together that it would have been hard for anyone to make a head of speed. Anyone caught by that would have been disintegrated under a mass of tearing fingers. I inwardly thanked anyone that was listening that we had done this last night. They were pouring in from the town centre.

“Is that most of the town?”

“It has to be. Christ. Is anyone else left alive out there apart from us?”

“Anyone sensible is staying tucked away. But hey, shouldn’t this clear the town for us? If we’re going to do a supply run, let’s do it whilst these things are distracted by the seagulls. With any luck they’ll just keep going and wash up abroad.”

“I wouldn’t wish this on the rest of the world. Not even the French.” I muttered grimly. But Rick was right, now was the perfect time to do a supply run.

“Have we decided the medical supplies are the thing we need right now?”

“Well it was, until you opened your gobby mouth about the water situation. So I suppose we need that now too.”

Gollum was walking up the stairs. He didn’t look any better in daylight. I wanted to sneer at him, but held it back for politeness sake. He suited his nickname. His head was shaved close.  He had a disgusting nose piercing going straight through like those things you see on bulls. There was a lip piercing too. His right ear had a gaping loophole which, I assumed, contained at some point some other kind of ridiculous piercing.

“Less of that Jez. It’s in the past.”

“But Oz, you were only saying last night that,”

“I was saying nothing, Jez. When did this lot start sunbathing?”

“Aww they started hobbling around right after the end of the meeting. Birds were giving it some. But we kept quiet on the pier boss, so they haven’t seen us any. There was one staring in the gate at the start, but I think it must have heard something else. Not there no more.”

Gollum came and stood loyally by Austin. I filed both of them under the “avoid and discretely kill if possible” section of my immediate social circle. The beach however was an awesome sight to behold.

“Who’s looking after the gate?”

“Me
, boss.”

“Then why aren’t you there? Get the fuck back down there you idiot! We’re going to do a run soon. We need to make sure the coast is clear.”

Gollum – I don’t think I’d ever be able to bring myself to calling him Jez – scuttled away muttering vitriol to himself.

“You want to do the run?”

“Rick’s right. Those things – they’re distracted. We need to get a small cluster of men together – yes, men. I’m only going to risk the strongest people we have on the first run. We don’t know what to expect, and the strongest have the best chance. So that’s you Warren, Rick and Andrew. One large rucksack each. One for medical supplies, the other two for as much water you can carry. Maybe a shotgun.”

“That’s a very rushed plan, Austin. Is there any way we can see in to the centre? The swarm was big and they’re still coming.”

“Well we’re waiting until they’re gone. You know, like those crabs that all go to the same beach to lay eggs or whatever. Millions of them, but they’ll run out. When they do, there just can’t be much left in the town. So we’ll have a quick window to run in. I say we – I mean you.”

“Can we get five? That makes much more sense. Two to guard and three to carry.”

“But more noticeable?”

“But then you said there would be nothing to notice us, right? Do you actually believe that Austin?”

Austin chose that moment to have a coughing fit. We all waited patiently for him to finish. He punched himself in the chest a few times. “Sorry ‘bout that. Well that explains why I won’t be going on any runs.”

We all exchanged looks of amused nonchalance. Austin missed them all.
I wasn’t expecting him to catch them. The man couldn’t catch snot in a tissue. I had no problem going out on the run. I’d been silently assessing Andrew since arriving. He seemed like the quiet efficient type. I wouldn’t have a problem going on any kind of treasure hunt with them. I couldn’t care less if there were three of us – especially if that mean no Gollum. There weren’t exactly a great deal of able-bodied men to go around.

“Is Goll – sorry I mean Jez – the only one working the gate?”

I had tried not to sound too patronising, but the man was all limbs and teeth. Andrew must have sensed my grasping effort as he came to my aid again. “If there might be a few of them then it might be worth having a second pair of eyes. You know, so we can either warn people or take action if they start making too much of a ruckus.”

“You can go and have a little party down there if you want. Just keep quiet and by every god and his dog, don’t let any of them see you!”

I waved at Rick and Andrew. “Come on then. We’ll keep an eye on the gate with Jez. Means we can plan the run properly whilst the Lemmings hobble over the road.”

“Lemmings?”

“Yeah,” I said “Lemmings. Easy. Those jumpy ones? They’re at least threatening in some way. You do not want one of those coming at you. The slow ones? You ever play the game Lemmings? Point where they go and they won’t turn around. Not for anything. Those slow ones are walking into the
sea
. I bet you they’d walk off the top of a high-rise if they thought they were going to get a snack.”