Pet From Hell (Infected Series Book 1) (9 page)

Chapter Nineteen

We came to the side door to the hangar and slowly opened it and stepped into what looked and felt like a black hole. The echo of our soft footsteps echoed round the huge space and because of it I had a horrible thought that the A.P.Cs had gone. Before my eyes could get accustomed to the gloom I heard a click and overhead lights flickered on and there stood not five feet in front of me was an A.C.P. Its large wheels and desert cammo paint scheme were welcome sight. Chris pushed a couple of large barrels in front of the door to give us a little security.

“Ok let’s clear this place quick and see if there are any of them in here with us, before we start checking out the vehicles.” Chris said pushing past me.

He headed off to the right toward the rear of the hangar. Dropping my rucksack I lifted my rifle and headed toward the big main doors. Trying to be as quiet as I could I took my time checking every nook and cranny. I didn’t want a repeat of what happened in the trees. When I got to the front of the hangar I cast a quick look toward the A.P.C only to find that there wasn’t just one there was four of them all lined up side by side. I heard a clang and then a curse come from the back of the hangar. I stood listening for anything out of the ordinary, but nothing happened after the cursing. Continuing along the front of the hangar, I was aware that this place would have been a great place for an ambush, but infected didn’t have much in the way of intelligence so I had no worries about them. Coming to the far corner I saw Chris walking toward me and he was limping slightly.

“Don’t worry just tripped over a fucking pallet truck.” He said.

“Was that you?” I said smiling.

“Funny fucker.” He said turning to look at the nearest A.P.C. “Let’s go have a look at these. We might have to siphon fuel from the others to get one going but it shouldn’t be hard.”

We walked to the rear of the first one and Chris walked opened the door and climbed inside. I waited outside for him to say something but he was back out within a couple of minutes.

“Battery is flat.” He said grunting as he jumped down.

The next one we tried was in the middle of some kind of maintenance. Our luck wasn’t holding out to well at the moment and I had a feeling it wasn’t going to get any better. The third A.P.C surprised me by having a charged battery and a full tank of fuel. I ran to grab my gear and had just put my hand on the rucksacks carry handle when I heard the rubble of an engine echo round the hangar.

“What the fuck? Is that twat going to leave me here alone?” I said out loud.

Pulling the rucksack on to one shoulder I ran back to the A.P.C to see Chris stood at the back door with a fucking great grin on his face.

“You thought I was going to leave you here, didn’t you?” He said shouting over the engine noise.

“Yes you twat!” I shouted at him.

I threw my rucksack at him and he caught it grinning and threw it into the back.

“And for that you have the honour of opening the doors so we can get the fuck out of here.” He said.

I flipped him the middle finger and ran between the vehicles to the doors. I had visions of having to pulling on a chain to open them, but as luck would have it they were driven by motors. I started them off and ran back to the A.P.C and climbed inside before they were fully up, I clambered into the passenger seat. As the door came up we saw the last of the infected stood at waiting for us coming out.

“Shit, what we going to do?” I asked.

Chris just grinned at me and said “Watch this.”

He slapped his large foot down on the accelerator and the A.C.P lumbered forward and from the way it pulled toward the infected streaming in through the open door. The first infected just disappeared under the front of the A.C.P without a single bump. It just kept on rolling through them like they weren’t even there as we pulled out the hangar and into the sunlight. Moving out of the vehicle depot we headed toward the outskirts of town and toward the rendezvous to pick up Jay. The noise this monster was making might actually bring all the infected for miles, but the way it tore through the infected back at the vehicle depot, I was happy for that to happen. I settled back into the passenger seat and watched the trees and fields pass by outside the windows. I could have nodded off or just zoned out because the next thing I could feel was Chris nudging me in the ribs.

“Marc, dude we’re here.” He said pointing out the windscreen at a large brick and wood building in front of us.

“Now what? Are we still being followed by that horde from Catterick?” I said looking into the rear of the A.P.C.

“Nah we lost them about a half hour ago. I gave them a few wrong turns as we came out of town. We were lucky that there are about four different ways to get here.” He said stretching his arms above his head. I climbed over into the rear and stretched out on the floor and looked up at the roof. Along either side were storage bins and a large circle hatch near to the cab. Standing climbed on to the seats to look at how we might open it, I found a couple of handles that looked they might be used to open it. The last thing I wanted to do was to open it and find we had an infected hitchhiker up there.

“Chris you want anything to eat?” I asked.

“Hmmm…what? Oh! Food yeah.” He said sleepily.

Grabbing my rucksack I opened it and pulled out a couple of snack bars and a bottle of water. Tapping him on the shoulder I put one of the bars and the bottle of water into his hands. I watched as a single infected staggered through some bushes at the edge of the car park and toward our little slice of sanctuary. It had made it about halfway across the car park when a figure moved on an intercept course with the shambling corpse. As the figure came out of the buildings shadow, I saw that it was Jay and of all the things he could be carrying as a weapon a cricket bat wasn’t the first thing I could think of. He was about four feet away when we heard his whistle from inside the A.P.C. The infected slowly stared to turn in his direction, when he brought the cricket bat round in a wide arc and struck the side of its head with such force the things neck snapped and it fell to the floor like its strings had been cut. Wiping the green and red smears of gore off the bat, Jay headed toward the rear of the A.P.C. Chris clambered past me and opened the rear door letting Jay climb inside.

“Where the fuck have you two been? Out on a date or something?” Jay said slumping into one of the seats in the back.

“Very funny you little turd.” Chris said smiling. “Actually we had to get rid of the tail we gathered on our way here.”

“I suppose that make sense, I see we still have little Mr Happy with us.” He said looking at me.

“Hey, Jay you know what fuck you and the horse you rode in on.” I said getting slightly pissed at his attitude.

He nearly bounced off the roof when I said that and if it wasn’t for Chris I could have seen us at each other’s throats in a matter of minutes. I turned in the seat to look out of the windscreen and noticed a few more shadows moving through the bushes and trees around the car park. I could hear Chris having a whispered conversation and watched through the rear view mirror as Jay kept casting dirty looks in my direction. To tell you the truth I hated the little shit and his attitude, but I knew we would have to stick together if we wanted to get through this.

“Chris it might be a good idea to get away from here mate. There’s a shit load of infected heading our way through the trees and bushes.” I said over my shoulder.

Hearing his heavy footsteps as they got closer made me shiver slightly. God only knew what those two had been whispering to each other whilst I had sat up here at the front. It was about time that my neurotic side started to rear its ugly head. Ever since I was a kid, I had always thought that people had it out for me. I suppose that’s why I had never spent more than six years in the Army, the fact that nearly all officers wanted you to go and die while they sipped tea and ate biscuits, fuelled my neurotic tendencies to the max. So here I was sitting in a tin can with two people who I had just met, made my brain nearly spill out my ears. Chris started the engine and pulled out of the car park and headed south in the general direction of York and the supposed safety of the bunker.

Chapter Twenty

Travelling for the first two hours was interesting to say the least. The A.P.C seemed to climb over or bull through nearly all of the obstacles that we came across, after those first two hours it became boring. As the light faded we started to look for any out of the way place to park up for the night. As we passed a small town something caught my eye and I had to take a second look, on the outskirts there was a multi-storey car park.

“Chris there’s a multi-storey over there near that shopping centre, it might be the most secure place round here.” I said pointing out of my side.

“Might be the only place round here and if we can get up on the top we’ll be ok.” He said turning the wheel toward the town.

After an hour of pushing cars out the way with the A.P.C we pulled up outside the entrance. It looked like it might be a tight fit getting in and the speed bumps going in didn’t help. Jay clambered out the rear and jogged to the stair well and shined his torch into the dark. He turned and headed back our way when a crawling infected grabbed his ankle and pulled him to the ground. Chris’ door was up against the wall and there was no way he was going to get out that way. I jumped between the seats and grabbed the axe from behind him and jumped out of the back. I hit the ground running and how I didn’t land on my face I don’t know. I was already raising the axe for the swing and had it moving just as I came up beside Jay. His eyes widened and I could see what was going through his mind as clear as day ‘He’s going to fucking kill me!’ his expression said. The axe seemed to take forever in the arc that ended with it taking half the infected head off. The green and red gore spilled out over the floor near Jay. His look of shock seemed to drain away as he rolled away as quickly as he could. Standing there breathing hard I looked down and saw that the creature must have been old when he died. His skin was wrinkled and cover in liver spots, his nose stood out as the next major feature it was what my mother used to call a strawberry. The other thing that stood out was the reason it had been a crawler, he had no legs from his knees down and I don’t mean that they had been eaten, they just weren’t there. You could see a large bite on his cheek which had ripped enough skin and tissue away to reveal his jaw bone and eye socket. I sighed at the thought of this old man being eaten whilst sat in a wheelchair that really was a nasty way to die. I headed back to the A.P.C and sat on the tailgate watching the light fade and the stars slowly come out. I heard Jay walking over before I saw him and looked over, he had his head down and looked to be dragging his feet.

He stopped in front of me and cleared his throat “Look Marc…”

“Jay don’t worry about it.” I turned to climb into the back and his hand caught my arm.

“Fuck sake Marc, I’m trying to say thank you.” He said looking angry.

“Really because you looked like you thought I was going to kill you just then.” I said turning to look him in the eye.

He looked at the ground and said “Yeah, I did think you were going to punch my ticket. Look I made a mistake about you, ok? When you first told us about the lab and you’re accidentally letting that infected cat loose. Well let’s just say I blamed you for all of this, and I don’t think I would have come to your aid if that had been you. And I don’t think I would have lost a moments sleep about it, but you didn’t even hesitate in killing that thing. So I would like to say I’m sorry and apologise about being such a twat.”

He stuck his hand out toward me and I looked at it, then looked him in the eye and reached out and took it.

“Look there isn’t a day that goes by when I wish I hadn’t opened that fucking door. My mind kicks the shit out me every morning about it and I am surprised that I haven’t stuck the barrel of my rifle in my mouth and just ended it.” I said feeling the weight of everything I had done on my shoulders.

“When you to girls have finished giving each other a fucking kiss. You better get inside and lock up, because we have company coming.” Chris shouted from inside.

I climbed inside and Jay climbed in slamming the door behind him. A few seconds later we heard the familiar slamming of fists against the side of the A.P.C.

“Jay what the fuck were you thinking of going out there in the first place.” Chris asked as the hammering got slightly louder.

“There’s no way we are going to be able to get this in the car park, it’s too tall by about five inches. So I thought we might have been able to use the stairs as a sort of camp for the night.” He said.

“Look what’s done is done let’s try and figure out what we are going to do now.” I said.

I pulled a bottle of water from my pack and threw it to Jay. Pulling one out for myself I sat on one of the benches with my head hung down. Chris climbed from the front and sat on the floor with his large back pressed up against the back of the driver’s seat. Time slowly dragged by and the hammering on the sides of the A.P.C tapered off only to be replaced by the low moans of the infected. We got as comfortable as we could considering we were sitting inside a huge steel box with wheels that was surrounded by infected humans wanting to feast on out flesh.

Closing my eyes I tried to drown out the sound of their inhuman voices. It wasn’t long before we heard Chris snoring loud enough that in the cramped space he drowned out the infected outside. I looked at Jay to see him lying across the other bench with his rucksack under his head and eyes firmly closed. My thoughts wandered to Jane and if she the company had managed to get her to safety. It wasn’t long before the noise from outside began to taper off and I could hear the slapping of bare feet moving away from the vehicle. Looking out through the windscreen I couldn’t see anything but darkness. Jay sat up and looked round the cabin and reached over beside the door and flicked a switch that turned off the dim lighting and we plunged into darkness as deep as outside. I curled up on my side and lay in the dark listening to the rumbling coming from Chris on the floor. I took a while for my body to relax enough for my mind to shut down and let me sleep.

The following day we set off just as the sky had started to lighten. The infected had moved on during the night and all that was left when we looked out the window was a few bodies lying round the A.P.C. Leaving the town was just as easy as our entry the night before. Following the southerly direction that we had taken after leaving Caterrick the day before. There were small pockets of infected along the roads, but they never interfered with our travel. We crested a hill that over looked the City of York and my jaw dropped, in the valley below the historical city was covered in smoke and flames. It had stood for centuries before the outbreak and was now nothing more than charred timbers and burnt out buildings. All that history was gone, and it looked as if the fire was still going well. I remember visiting the city once when I was a child and remembered marvelling at the way you could have reached out from one building and held hands with the person across the street. I supposed that was how the fire had caused so much damage. If you could reach out and hold hands with the person across the street, then the flames of a fire could just as easily jump the same gap. We must have sat there watching the flames flicker through smoke for ten minutes, before Chris pulled the A.P.C on to the ring road round the outskirts of the city.