I Dream of Zombies (Book 2): Haven (17 page)

Wednesday, 31

“Right,” said
Commander Caballero. “Now that everyone is here, I won’t be accompanying you on this particular patrol, but I will be leaving you in the capable hands of my second-in-command, Will Acre. Will, take over,” he added, stepping back to lean against the wall.

The tall man with blonde
, spiky hair gave a smile and a wink. “I trust you’re all okay with that decision,” he said, half-jokingly. “Go easy on me, guys… and girls. We will be taking one of the Panther CLVs with a general-purpose machine gun and a Land Rover RWMI, each one manned by a crew of three: driver, soldier and gunner. In the middle will be a Vector and the bus.

“I will be in the Panther at the front with Ian and Marcus. Marla, Sylvia and Tommy will be in the Land Rover.  John, Leroy and Elliott, you’ve got the
Vector. Martinez and Jake, you take the bus. We’re taking extra fuel in the back of each, as usual. The plan is to head into Amesbury again. It’s a high residential area and the vicar we rescued tells us there are more survivors there. Any questions?”

Everyone looked at one another and shook their heads. It was the usual routine; nothing out of the ordinary, apart from the dead.

“So, pick your weapons and make your way out to the vehicles. If you want to take anything extra and bag it, go ahead,” Will continued. “Better safe than sorry.”

He
turned to Caballero, who stood up and made to leave. “I’ll be heading back to my office, so I’ll see you all for a report on what you find in a few hours. Good luck everyone.” He nodded to his soldiers and left the room.

Marla packed some extra ammo for her Glock into her small rucksack and picked up a SA80 assault rifle. Tommy eyed her choice and went for the same. “Copying me?” she asked.

He laughed. “You just have good taste.”

She raised her eyebrows before picking up two handfuls of magazines and slipping them in her bag. “I guess we
should get going,” she added, heading out behind the men.

Tommy grinned
to himself and followed.

***

As the Panther slowed down and parked by the side of the road, Tommy followed suit and cut the engine of the Land Rover. He glanced out the windscreen and watched as Will, Ian and Marcus stepped on to the pavement checking their guns.

“I guess we
join them,” said Sylvia, opening the passenger door.

Marla nodded and followed her out while Tommy
exited the driver’s side. Martinez, John and Leroy wandered over while Elliott stayed in the Vector and Jake on the bus. Tommy surveyed the area. It was distinctly still.

“As you can see, it’s pretty quiet, but it’s only 10.23 a.m
., so it’s to be expected,” said Will. “There are a few zombies about – there’s one just over there.” He nodded and everyone turned to see the remains of a corpse crawling along the pavement opposite. It was only a torso, a head and one arm, but it still struggled to make its way towards them. “Harmless, but if it gets too close, we can put it out of its misery,” Will continued. “We have a few places to check. Over there are a library, a small supermarket and various warehouses. There are bigger supermarkets in this town, but Caballero told me to focus on this group. The administrator asked if we’d collect more books for our own library at Haven, so I agreed to this. We’ll do it if there is no risk and we have time, but first we should check that food place. If I was a survivor, I’d think of camping out there. With me?”

Everyone
nodded. “Okay,” Will continued, “let’s go. Jake and Elliott are staying here. They’ll move into the Panther and the Land Rover, because they’re armed, so if you can give me your keys, Tommy, I’ll pass them over with mine. Right, I’ll just be a sec and we can be off.”

Marla watched him walk over to the bus and the
Vector. She raised her eyebrows at Tommy and he smiled. They seemed to be on the same page where Will was concerned. The guy seemed cocky. Sylvia gave her a querying look, but Marla just shrugged. Martinez, John and Leroy shared a joke, and then Will was back and gestured for them all to follow him towards the small supermarket.

The
surrounding car park was desolate. A few cars sat idle here and there, abandoned, some with their doors open, their long-gone drivers not having made it into a parking space. One had crashed into the back of another. Upturned trolleys lay scattered while rubbish blew intermittently. Marla scanned the area, but nothing non-human stirred.

The
boots of the guards echoed on the concrete as they made their way to the entrance of the building. Tommy gestured to some messages taped to the front wall. Photos of faces of every age, sex and race gazed out among torn sheets of paper mentioning where people were hiding out while others asked if certain people had been seen anywhere at all. Held on by scraps of tape of various colours, they fluttered in the wind. So many phone numbers and addresses, thought Tommy. Safe enough as he was pretty sure the freaks couldn’t read. Wondering how many of these message writers had found one another, he sighed and turned to see what Will was doing.

“That’s sad,” said Sylvia to Marla. “All those people separated.”

She nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. They didn’t stand a chance here. Tragic.”

Will
strode up to the glass doors at the front, but they didn’t open.

“No electricity?” asked Ian.

Will shook his head. “That’s not it. There is. The Grid is still working – so far, anyway. Someone must have locked it up. I can see steel shutters behind the glass. Let’s check around for any open doors. I can’t see what’s inside.”

He led the way around the side of the
supermarket to the rear where a set of double doors was secured with a padlock. Pulling the chain towards him, he created a gap between the doors. Inside was darkness.

“So s
omeone either locked this to keep something out or something in,” Marla stated.

Will
frowned.

“Here,” said Martinez, taking a torch out of his jacket pocket and shining it through the gap
above Will’s head. “See anything?”

Will gazed in
side, straining his eyes to see as far as possible. The floor in front of him looked clear, but the room stretched quite a way back. It was a storage place and all he could see were shelving units and boxes. He peered to the right, pulling the chain as far as it would go to enable him to see at a sharp angle: nothing unusual. Shuffling his feet, he angled his body to check the left as Martinez turned behind him to shine his light in that same direction. There was a flicker in the glow and scratching, soft but distinct.

“Shit!” gasped
Will, stepping backwards as a shadow moved in front of him. A rush of decayed flesh and dried blood filled his lungs, and he heaved as the thing bashed its rotting head against the doors, its tongue spilling out of its split gash of a mouth. It wound two gnarled hands through the gap; the knuckles bare bone, the fingers twisting, reaching. Martinez whipped his knife out of his trouser pocket and stabbed the cadaver through the centre of its skull. It fell heavily against the door and stayed there. “Are there more?” he asked.

Will brushed himself down and pushed the creature’s head with the butt of his rifle. There was a
dull thud as the body fell to the ground. “I can’t see anything in there, but then it’s too dark.”

“If there were more inside
, we’d hear or see them,” said Marla. “They tend to move like sheep toge...”

“Yes,” Will
cut in. “We know how they move. John, do you have the cutter?”

The guy immediately opened his rucksack on the ground and passed it to Will, who clipped the chain. He handed it back and nodded to Martinez. As the two men prepared to open the doors at the same time, everyone else stood back in position with their weapons ready. Will nodded again and the doors
were opened ever so slowly until they flattened back against the wall. The room beyond came into view. It was dimly lit, the furthest side unclear in the darkness. The far walls were concealed by shelving units, and the floor space was taken up by metal trolleys and racks, cardboard boxes and plastic sheeting covering goods of various descriptions.

“It seems very neat and orderly,” Tommy remarked, “almost as if people just left it.”

Will raised an eyebrow and nodded. “Let’s check it out,” he suggested, stepping over the body of the dead thing.

The men followed behind, with Sylvia, Marla and Tommy bringing up the rear. Tommy pulled the doors together until they gave the appearance of being sealed from a distance. He hoped the smell of the freak
inside would conceal the presence of humans.

Will walked between the supplies, checking the labels on things. “If this place is clear, we should try to take some of this back. We can pack it
on the bus.”

“Good idea,” Martinez agreed. “Shame we can’t take the beer.”

Ian nodded and winked at John, who grinned. Marla wondered if they would try to steal some on the way out. Nothing would surprise her and she couldn’t blame them really. Some days she really missed a good strong pint. Before she started salivating at the thought, she glanced up at the ceiling and tried to focus. It soon became apparent that the room was empty of dead-lookers. The only one appeared to be the guy whom they met earlier. Marla assumed he’d worked here and been locked in when his workmates realised he’d been bitten. She bristled at the thought.

There were two doors,
one red and one black. Will listened at both of them and gave a shrug. “I can’t hear anything,” he whispered, “but without a map of this place, it’s anyone’s guess what lies behind these doors, seeing as they’re not marked.”

“Maybe one l
eads on to the main floor where the food is,” John suggested.

Will smirked
, as though thinking the guy was not the most intelligent in the shop. “I’ll see if any open,” he muttered. “Brace yourselves, ladies.”

Striding to the right-hand door,
Will pulled on the handle. It was locked. Tutting, he walked back to the other door and tugged on that handle. It gave straight away. Beyond was a short corridor, along which hooks lined the walls. Some coats hung here and there, and an umbrella idled. There was another door at the far end. Will strode towards it and everyone else followed, except Tommy that is, who waited behind with the door wide open in case a swift exit was necessary. He looked back at the double-door exit, almost expecting something to walk through them.

“That’s handy. There’s a key in this one,” said Will.
Keeping his guard up, he turned the handle of the door at the end of the corridor while everyone waited in total silence. It was as if everyone sucked in their breath at the same time. The door swung open to unveil the dingy main floor of the warehouse. All the lights were out. Will stepped inside and held the door open so that everyone else could file through. Tommy quietly closed the first door and walked the length of the corridor. Once he passed Will, the guy closed the door without making a sound. In unison, the soldiers raised their guns and surveyed the place. It was so quiet and still, and then it wasn’t. In the distance darker shadows flickered in the dimness, accompanied by a low hum in the air.

“Oh my God,” muttered Sylvia, moving closer to Marla. “
You see?” She noticed that Will had already clocked them.

The
supermarket was divided into lanes between high walls stacked with foodstuff and freezers. From where the group stood, they could see all the way down two of the lanes, as far as the dim light allowed. Walking towards them were two lines of the dead, shuffling together, bumping, as they made their way towards the smell of human flesh, newly awakened by the aroma.

“What do you think?” asked Marcus
, raising his gun. “Can we take them?”

Will
blinked. “Can we take them?” he mimicked. “Are you fucking kidding me? Both aisles are chock-full of shit-for-brains zombies, and look over there to the right – there’s more of the fuckers. It’s like the Stepford Wives, but uglier. Hell, no, we’re not taking them – we’re leaving
now
! Everyone get back! Out!”

Sylvia pushed Marla towards the door as Ian opened it, and they ran inside, down the corridor and back into the relative safety of the storage room. Marla heard heavy footsteps behind her as everyone else followed. Will was the last. He
locked the door to the supermarket floor and sprinted back to the storage room. On entering it, he ordered, “Barricade this door, so we can at least take supplies from here.”

“Right, sir,” said
Ian as he started to drag a shelving unit. Seeing his slow progress, Martinez pushed it from the other side. Taking their cue, the rest of the group moved other units as quickly as possible until they were sure the place was secure.

“I think that’ll do,”
announced Will, rubbing his hands together. “Everyone, grab a trolley and start taking this stuff out to the bus. Be as quiet as you can. It’s still early in the day and don’t shoot unless it’s life or death, because gunshots will bring every ugly fucker in this town over to us to say hello. Got me? Just use your knives – gruesome, but effective.”