The Undead. The First Seven Days (41 page)

Still no reply.
  ‘Well… what are you going to do then? Just sit here and wait? Mate, nobody is coming. If there is any army left they will be holed up somewhere trying to survive, like everyone else. Okay, look, I don’t have time to waste, if you are coming then we’ll be going in about two minutes.’
  I leave the door open and walk away.

Dave is waiting for me at the top of the stairs and I shake my head at him. He nods back and we both go down. All of the recruits are there, armed with an assortment of weapons; mainly wooden table legs. They all look up expectantly as Dave and I walk down to them. We stop and stare back.
  ‘Listen lads, they are slow now but don’t stand and fight them. We just need to get through, that’s all. Once we are in the open, we can move much quicker than them, just watch out for any weirdo super zombies doing crossword puzzles.’

A couple of them smile back and I hear a few sniggers. Nervous excitement is running through them.
  Dave starts to talk: ‘Strike and move… keep moving and keep a firm grip of your weapon. Strike and move. Do you understand me?’ Dave barks at them and I’m surprised at the harsh tone of his voice.

He moves into the crowd and shows them how to grip the clubs with both hands.
  ‘Strike down onto the head. Your objective is to get through them, so only strike when you need to - but do not hesitate. They lunge quickly at the last second. Do not let them get their mouths anywhere near you. Do you understand?’ He moves between them, raising the clubs and adjusting their grips, a few mutter back at him.
  ‘STRIKE AND MOVE, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?’ His voice booms into the confined room and some of them jump from the sudden noise. More of them respond though and shout: ‘YES SIR’.

‘I AM NOT A SIR, HE IS A SIR,’ and he points to me. ‘I AM DAVE, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?’
  ‘YES… DAVE.’
  ‘WHAT?’
  ‘
YES… DAVE!
’ They scream out.
  ‘Good,’ Dave says and comes back to my side.

The men are pumped up and ready, I whisper over to Dave: ‘I’m not, Sir! I’m just Howie… but everyone calls me Mr bloody Howie already, ‘cause of you.’
  ‘Yes… Mr Howie.’ That glint is in his eye again.
  ‘Right, where’s my axe?’
  ‘Here… Sir,’ Blowers hands it to me, and it’s been cleaned too.
  ‘Thanks mate, now… which way are we going Dave?’
  ‘The drill square first.’
  ‘Got it. Do you want to lead?’
  He hesitates for a second, which I take full advantage of.
  ‘Too late, I’m closest to the door so I’m going first.’
  ‘Yes, Mr Howie.’
   I look round at the nervous faces and realise just how much I’ve changed in a few short days. I look at Dave and smile.
  ‘Ready, Dave?’
  He smiles back: ‘Yes.’

I wrench the door open and charge out into the packed zombie bodies; screaming and roaring with adrenalin.

Dave is right behind me and launches himself straight into them; going off to one side and whirling his knives at their throats. I swing out and smash zombie skulls with my glorious axe.

The third battle today and I still feel the fury and rage within me as I destroy them one by one. The bodies are packed in here, but the axe and Dave’s knives soon clear some space and we fight out.

I hear more roars behind me as the recruits spill out of the building; charging into the packed horde. The wooden clubs are smacking them down, and undead bodies are falling to the ground all around us. This feels amazing, having so many fighting together - fighting as one - as a team toward a common goal.

The glory of battle surges through me and I give a fresh roar and plough further into them. The recruits respond and I can hear screams and guttural roars from all around me as we take them down.

Dave is spinning and dropping more bodies than any of the rest of us, but we surge forward and the zombies are beaten back by the sheer ferocity of the attack.

Fourteen of us charge in and fourteen of us batter and beat them; killing and destroying anything in our path.

This is one of the best feelings I have ever had. We are unstoppable. We are an army come to wreak vengeance on the zombie soldiers.

Within seconds, I am coated in blood again as the decaying grey faces loom up in front of me, waiting for me to cleave their skulls open. Three of them come from my left, all in a row. I pull the axe back and give a mighty heave, driving the blunt end into the closest one. He barrels into the next one and they all stagger down, only to be clubbed by recruits coming behind me. I glance back and watch the young men fighting. Some of them are clearly filled with the roar of the battle and are madly clubbing the zombies down. A few of the recruits look petrified though and are clutching the clubs to their chests and trying to stay away from the zombies. One of them is crying and whimpering; visibly shaking from head to toe. A zombie solider lurches at him, I shout a warning but it’s too late and he goes down.

Dave and I both run back towards him and attack the zombie, but all in vain. The zombie has bitten into the recruit’s neck and blood is spraying out over the ground. Another one of the young lads rushes to his side and tries to pull him up, as Dave goes back into the battle.
  ‘IT’S TOO LATE, KEEP GOING.’ I shout at him, he stares blindly at me and I push him forward into the gap created by Dave and the recruits who have fought their way to the front.

We burst out of the horde and suddenly there is space in front of us. Those out first, turn and fight to the sides; driving the zombie soldiers back, until all of the recruits are through and we run to the drill square.
  It was a short but very intense battle and nearly all of them are breathing hard.

The last two days must have drained them; they must be close to exhaustion - they certainly look worn down.

We keep pushing them over to the far side of the drill square and let them flop down on the ground, to recover for a few minutes, as Dave scans the buildings around the area. I’m bent over with my left hand resting on my knee, the still dripping axe in my right. There are so many undead bodies on the ground now.

I look round to the recruits. Blowers and Cooke are jubilant and high-fiving some of the others. Even Tucker looks pumped up and is joking. A few of them are silent though; silent and terrified. I can see the fear in them.
  It’s strange how the instinct for survival differs between people. Some, like the officer, will hide or go into shock, unable to process what they have lost and what’s going on around them. Others will follow the pack and, even though they don’t want to fight, the fear of being left alone, makes them move. Then there are those that will fight, even when they are terrified; they can see what must be done and will do it, because they have to.

Then there are: Blowers, Cooke, Smith, Talley, McKinney and Tucker. Taken into a fight, out of necessity, and they relish every second of it. I can see it on their faces now; as they re-live the battle and joke about how the heads exploded and the brains came out.  

Some of the others are looking up to them and trying to joke along too, but I can see the conflicting emotions in them. They look at Blowers and Cooke and laugh, but then they glance at each other, for re-assurance. They have just killed what had been people; soldiers. What they want to be. What they now are.
  I look back up at the car and realise what Dave and I did. Examining my own feelings now, I know that, as soon as I saw them, I wanted to be in there, hurting them and breaking them apart. We probably could have found a way around them, but I was glad that we hacked through, instead. What does that say about me?

That anger and fury I felt when I discovered my parents must have been killed, woke something inside me; I don’t know if it will ever go away now.

I realise that Dave has joined me, while I was deep in thought.
  ‘You okay, Dave?’
  ‘Yes, Mr Howie.’
  ‘We probably could have found a way round them, don’t you think?’
  ‘Probably.’
  ‘But we didn’t.’
  ‘No.’
  ‘Do you enjoy it?’
  ‘What?’
  ‘The killing? The fighting?’
  He pauses for a second and looks me in the eye.
  ‘Do you, Mr Howie?’
  There it is. I have been honest to myself, but can I be honest to another human being and say I do enjoy it?

We hold eye contact and I know that I don’t need to answer. I don’t need him to answer either. I start to smile at him.
  ‘Let’s get them guns, mate.’
  He smiles back and turns back to scanning the buildings.
  ‘Weapons.’
  ‘What?’
  ‘We don’t call it a gun, we call it a weapon.’
  ‘You’re a picky bugger, Dave – so… which building is it?’
  ‘That one,’ he points to the left. There are a row of buildings facing the parade square. They are bigger than the ones on the side, where we rescued the recruits. Dave points at a large building in the middle of them.
  ‘How do you know?’
  ‘The armoury is always central, so that everyone can get to it quickly.’
  The undead soldiers are shuffling over towards us, but our route is clear.
  ‘Right lads, you ready? We need to move,’ I turn and shout to the recruits, who slowly stand up and stretch their weary muscles. They look ready to drop and it’s clear they need food and rest and very soon.
  ‘These lads are fucked, mate,’ I say to Dave.
  ‘They need rest.’
  ‘We don’t have time to rest, Dave.’
  ‘I know that, Mr Howie.’
  ‘RIGHT. LET’S MOVE IT.’

They respond immediately to Dave’s drill sergeant voice booming at them, moving listlessly towards the buildings.

Dave was right and we were able to gain entry by simply forcing an external door. I can’t help but wander why the soldiers didn’t take weapons from here, if they thought they were under attack. But then, the undead and injured were their colleagues and mates, so I guess they just simply didn’t think of it as an attack.

  The building leads into a hallway with a long counter and a wall behind it. From the set-up, I guess the soldiers line up at the counter and are issued with their weapon.

  There is a set of closed double doors behind the counter and it takes Dave seconds to vault the counter, push the doors open and disappear inside. Some of the lads are quick to get over. By the time I get through the doors, I can hear whistles of appreciation and surprise.
  The room inside is massive and takes up the rest of the length of the building. There are metal shelves running down both sides and, apart from the first half of one side, they are stacked with guns. The guns look identical and are racked stock down; the trigger guard facing out.

  The recruits spread out, along the end of the room, just looking at the awesome display.  

  Dave is already down at the far end, going through boxes and opening doors to cabinets.  

  I walk down the length of the room, staring at the guns to either side. At the end, I see that Dave has opened a metal cabinet, there are rows of black handles sticking out and I only realise that they are handguns when Dave pulls one out and slides the top back.
  ‘The GPMG are gone, must be out in the field for the exercise,’ Dave says to me.
  ‘The what?’
  ‘The General Purpose Machine Gun. They must have taken it out,’
  ‘Is that one of the big things with a tripod or something?’
  ‘Yes.’
  ‘Oh, well… we clearly don’t have enough guns here…’ I glance back along the shelves and stare at the impressive sight.
  ‘Dave, how long will it take to show us how to use them?’

  Dave pauses and looks back at the recruits and seems to be thinking deeply. Eventually he turns back to me.
  ‘To learn how to fire the SA80 will only take a short time, but they need to know about the moving parts and how to clear the weapon, if it jams, and how to clean it, that takes longer to explain. But that only shows them how to use the weapon, and not any basic techniques.’
  ‘Okay, mate – well… it’s just gone 2 p.m. now, it gets dark at about 9.30 p.m., so we need to be in one of those big vehicles by that time - at the very least. How long do you need?’
  ‘Depends on them. Some will pick it up quickly, some won’t.’ I nod and turn to the recruits.

  I probably know less than they do, but at least they had an interest when they joined up. I’ve never even seen an Army machine gun in real life. I need to learn too, but I also need to be moving and I feel frustrated at the delay. But, if Dave can run us through some basic skills now, it will make all the difference when we do have to go back out there. Especially, if it goes wrong again.

  Which it will.

  It always bloody does.
  ‘Right, listen up lads,’ I shout over to them and they drift down to gather round me.
  ‘Dave is going to run through basic weapon techniques, we need to learn this if we are going to survive out there. It will be fast learning and we don’t have time to keep stopping if you don’t keep up. You don’t have to do this and it’s up to you if you stay or go.’ They stare back at me; a couple at the back keep turning round to look at the door,  casting nervous glances at each other.
  ‘Lads, honestly, you can go if you want to, but your chances of survival are far greater if you learn this. We are going to do it now.’