Surviving The Evacuation (Book 3): Family (16 page)

“Did you really come over here because of me? I mean, how much of it was about revenge or finding Quigley or that Doctor?”

“I’m here with you now aren’t I?”

That was good enough for me. We reached the stone wall.

“I’ve forty three rounds left,” he said, unslinging his M-16.

“That might do it.” I’d left the pistol and its last few rounds with Kim.

We climbed over the wall.

“I’ll take the left then, you the right?” he asked.

“Sounds good.”

He looked at me, I at him. He nodded, I nodded back. He headed off to the left, I to the right.

I kept my eyes fixed on the small patch of clear ground I was intending to make my stand. As it grew nearer the idiocy of what we were about to do began to sink in. An all or nothing frontal assault ultimately to save a child. It was absurdly romantic in the most old-fashioned sense of the word.

We reached the road at about the same time, without the undead noticing us. We were about a hundred yards apart, each about the same distance from the drive leading to the car park.

Waiting for the zombies to realise we were there, I started to feel foolish. I wondered whether I’d have to start shouting, just to get the attention of the undead. I looked over at my brother, intending to signal my intention, when he solved the problem by firing.

It was a single shot and took a zombie in the back of the neck. The creature stumbled and half spun forwards, falling into two creatures in front. Sholto fired again, the bullet struck just above the creature’s ear. Even from close to seventy yards away I saw the spray of gore arcing up over the pack, as the back of its head exploded.

Before its body had fallen to the ground, They began to turn around. Not all together, but one by one, in quick succession. And just as quickly, They began to lurch towards us.

I checked that the hatchet was loose in my belt, then lowered the blade of the pike so it was level with the ground. I’d try and hook the creatures, knock Them over, then stab Them through the skull. That had worked before, and if it didn’t work now I’d retreat until I could climb back over the stone wall. I played out that scenario, over and over, as the zombies got closer and closer. The pike grew heavy. I’d forgotten how slowly They moved. They had to cross the car park, and then reach the driveway. The fencing would funnel Them out onto the road, but then I’d still have to wait for Them to cross the fifty yards or so of road.

There were three out front, five behind, then two, then the rest. Would They split up, half heading towards me, the rest towards my brother? I’d no idea. He fired. Another creature went down. He fired again and hit a shoulder. And again and this time I couldn’t see any effect. And I realised that there was no reason for Them to come towards me. Sholto was the one with the gun. He was the one making the noise. That was about the time I started to wish I’d come up with a plan.

I started limping towards the driveway.

Sholto fired. It was a good shot. It was a great shot. The bullet smashed through a zombie’s open mouth and blew the back of its head apart, sending its lank pigtails, still attached to skin and bone, flying off in opposite directions.

For some reason one of the zombies was faster than the others. It staggered forward, a dozen paces ahead of the pack. I took another step forward, checked the position of the other undead. They were a dozen paces behind. There was a shot. I didn’t look to see if it was a hit. I took a breath and readied the pike.

The zombie was twenty feet away. It had been scalped. That’s the only way of describing it. Hair and skin had been cut off, revealing white bone like a macabre parody of a tonsure. Someone must have tried to kill it. They’d missed and, probably, they’d died. A few errant strands of hair remained, twitching back and forth each time the creature’s shoulders flexed and its hands grasped out at the gap between us.

There was a shot.

I checked my grip, reminded myself that I’d two fingers missing. The zombie had reached the edge of the slope leading down the road. I took a step forward, twisted the pike, took another pace, swung the pike forward and round and looped the head under the zombie’s ankle. I pulled. It fell. I skipped forward, plunging the spear forward. The creature rolled. The point jarred against concrete.

There was another shot.

I didn’t look to see, I was too busy regaining my balance. I pulled the point back and was about to try again, but it was too late. The creature was halfway to its feet and two more zombies were now at the top of the slope. Gravity helped Them on their way, as They half fell down the incline, knocking the creature that had fallen back down to the ground.

I skipped back a pace, and another. I looked at the pack. There were eight or nine all close together, all close to me. I didn’t waste time counting properly. Behind Them came the rest, and it suddenly looked like a lot more than thirty zombies. There was another shot.

Focus, I told myself. I skipped back another step. I glanced back to Sholto. So far all the zombies heading down the drive were heading towards me. That was good, I told myself, as I skipped back again. I could lead Them away and my brother could thin Them out. There was another shot. I risked a glance over my shoulder. The stone wall stood twenty yards away. I could make it. It was going to be OK. I repeated the words over and over, in the hope that would make them true. Suddenly, my earlier stoicism evaporated. I really, really didn’t want to die.

Another shot. Climbing the wall was going to be the tricky part. Then three shots in quick succession. I glanced over at my brother. I could no longer see him. The undead were in the way. But there didn’t seem to be so many, not right in front of me. There were seven. Or was it six? There was another shot then three, then a burst and I cursed. Sholto should be saving his ammunition, making each shot count, not wasting them like that.

But he would know that. He must be in trouble. I had to help him. I’d have to climb over the wall and run down the length of it, to where he was. Another single shot and this time there were definitely only six, and how did my brother get the angle for that last shot? I didn’t have time to work it out, because that creature with the scalped head, the one marginally faster than the others, was out in front again, only six paces away.

I swung the pike up, spear point forward, and skipped a half step to change my footing. I plunged the pike forward. The point smashed up through the zombie’s cheek. Its skull almost seemed to crumble as the creature collapsed, dragging the pike with it. I barely managed to keep my grip. In the half second it took to pull the weapon free, the pack kept advancing and now they were a pushing shoving scrum of arms and teeth, barely a pike’s length away. I skipped backwards, and again. I was in the middle of the road. If I wanted to get to the wall I needed to get some distance from Them. There was another shot. A zombie collapsed. Another shot. There were four zombies left, in front of me. Then a rapid burst, and there was only one. I stopped retreating.

I swung the pike up, scoring a line through a faded flannel shirt. The creature didn’t notice. I swung again, the blade bit deep into the zombie’s neck and stuck there. The zombie fell, brown pus spraying out onto the asphalt, and it took my pike with it. The shaft hit the ground as the zombie toppled forward. The wooden handle splintered and broke.

I pulled out the hatchet. The nearest zombie was at the top of the drive, but moving back towards the house. I stalked towards it, but only managed three paces before there was a shot and it collapsed. There was a volley, then another. I looked over at Sholto, half thinking that he must have had more ammo than he’d thought, but his gun was lowered. There was a third volley and I realised the shots had come from the safe house, and the pack was now heading back there, towards the sound of gunfire.

Hatchet in hand, unsteady from an excess of adrenaline and a lack of sleep, I followed.

As I got closer, I made out five rifles pointed out of four windows on the upper floor of the main building. Then the volleys stopped. There was one last single shot and a zombie wearing the remains of a lurid pink tracksuit, collapsed. Then all was silent except for the hammering of undead fists against wood and stone.

When I’d climbed the incline to the main gate, I realised why. What I’d taken as a dark band of paint ringing the house at about the level of the ground floor ceiling was actually the shadow from a ledge. It was about three feet in width, and judging by the window boxes, had held a profusion of trailing plants. Now, it prevented the people in the house from firing down at the undead immediately underneath them.

“There were more around the other side than we realised,” Sholto said, walking up to join me. Two dozen zombies lay dead in the car park and out on the road. About the same number two or three deep, were once more gathered around the house, beating and clawing at the walls.

I could just make out faces in the window, and thought that their expressions seemed expectant. It was Sholto who worked out what it was that they were expecting. He started shouting, bellowing out the words to some old protest song. Even under the circumstances, I thought that was in bad taste.

I stayed silent. He was making enough noise for the both of us.

Heads at the back of the pack slowly began to turn. By the second chorus, seven zombies were heading towards us and another dozen were faltering at the packs edges uncertain as to whether we, or the house were the more enticing prey.

The closest of those seven was fifteen feet away, when there was a ragged burst. They fell. Only one tried to get up. Its jaw had been shot away, its head nodded back and forth as if it couldn’t understand why it could no longer bite down. Sholto aimed, pulled the trigger. His rifle clicked, empty. I darted forward, swinging the hatchet up and then down. The movement was enough to get another four moving away from the house. Sholto had stopped singing, and I clearly heard, coming from the house, the words ‘Aim first, Donnie. Remember to aim!”

There were four shots. The zombies fell.

There was a brief lull. The undead had all returned their attention to the house. My brother started up singing again, but without the same vigour as before. Only three creatures moved far enough from the building to be shot.

There were about fifteen left when, at the same time as she started climbing out onto the ledge, a woman called out, “Get Closer! Keep singing. Shout!”

“Get back in Carmen,” another woman, still inside, called out “It won’t take your...”

The ledge cracked. It split. Amidst a shower of splinters and stone, she fell down into the pack of undead.

“Come on,” Sholto roared, but I was already limping forward as fast as I could, my eyes fixed on the woman, even as, zombies crowding around her, she disappeared from view.

There were a few shots from inside, bullets skittered on concrete and smacked into the stone wall of the barn. A few undead fell, a few more spun backwards before renewing their efforts to reach the prone woman. Then there was a long drawn out burst. The woman had been lucky, she’d managed to hold onto her rifle. She emptied the magazine into the creatures around her. Two of Them collapsed on top of her which, with the remains of the ledge, offered her some temporary protection from the clawing hands of the pack.

Sholto reached the undead, his machete cleaving up and down and left and right, about the same time as the door to the house flew open. Three men came out. One held a sword, one a rifle and another a short handled spear. I didn’t have time to take in any more details because I’d reached the edge of the pack. With the woman on the ground, with Sholto yelling and ululating, the creatures didn’t even notice me. The hatchet came up and then down. I swung. I hacked. I pushed and kicked and punched and hewed. It was all a blur, a great mass of gore, interspersed with brief moments of clarity.

The hatchet stuck in a creature’s forehead. The blow hadn’t done enough to kill it, so I was warding it off with one hand, whilst trying to pull the axe free with the other. I’d just turned my head, and saw this second creature just inches away. And then, out of nowhere, the man with the spear appeared, stabbing it through the zombie’s eye. Then he pivoted and turned with a graceful brevity of movement. His spear sliced right alongside the cut my axe had made in the first creature’s head, cutting through bone and sinew as if they were butter. The zombie fell, its head cleaved in two, and I’d barely enough time to register that this man was old, not just aged by recent experience, but genuinely old, before there was another zombie in front of me. My axe went up and my hand went out and the fight went on.

And then, moments that seemed like years later, it was over. My eyes darted around, my hands moving up and down, looking for the next opponent, but They were all dead.

I glanced over at my brother. He was doing that same jerking back and forth, scanning the ground for threats. He’d lost his machete at some point and had resorted to using the M-16 as a club. The barrel was bent, the butt covered in gore. He stared at it for a moment before throwing it away in disgust. He shook his head, as if remembering, then ran over to the side of the house and the woman who’d fallen from the ledge.

“Carmen? You alright?” the old man called out.

“Fine. Fine. Bruised my ego, that’s all,” the woman called out from under the bodies, as Sholto started dragging Them off her.

I looked around. The man with the sword was young, with a scraggly red beard that matched the colour of his sunburnt scalp. Wearing a camouflage jacket and carrying a rifle slung over his back, he might have looked intimidating if he’d not been moving erratically from body to body, the sword waving in a haphazard figure of eight, brown pus dripping from its edge, as he looked for the still living dead. He looked like I felt, shocked and dazed.

The third man, the one who’d come out of the house with a rifle and still held it with a calm professionalism that just highlighted how the rest of us were still just experienced amateurs, took pity on him.