The Undead. The First Seven Days (95 page)

They arrive at the gates to find Blowers and Cookey still there; joking with each other.
  ‘Lads, how are you?’ Howie asks.
  ‘Yeah, we’re good, Mr Howie - how’s the plans coming on? We’ve still got loads of people coming up asking if they can help,’ Blowers says.
  ‘Slowly getting there, it’s seems to be taking ages though. You two okay down here?’
  ‘Yeah fine, we’ve got coffee on constant flow and there’s a toilet in there,’ Cookey says, smiling.
  ‘What more can a man need?’ Howie says.
  ‘Err, some women, some steak, no zombie army coming for us, maybe a television and an
Xbox
, some popcorn…’ Cookey replies.
  ‘Oh, listen to him,
women
he says! You wouldn’t know what to do with one, other than sit and talk about curtains and flower arranging,’ Blowers cuts in.
  ‘We could sit and chat with our legs folded up underneath us, wearing thick, woolly jumpers,’ Cookey adds.
  ‘What’s wrong with woolly jumpers? I’ve got woolly jumpers,’ Chris interrupts, with a look of serious intent.
  ‘Ha, nice one…’ Blowers laughs.
  ‘Who’s laughing?’ Chris asks. ‘I’m not.’
  ‘Yeah, right, you got me like this before,’ Blowers laughs, trailing off, as Chris remains poker faced. ‘You are joking, aren’t you?’
  ‘Do I look like the kind of man who wears woolly jumpers?’ He replies, as his face splits apart with a big grin.
  ‘Well… now that you come to mention it…’ Blowers jokes.
‘You cheeky bugger,’ Chris retorts. ‘Have some respect and get that bloody gate opened up.’
 

Clarence steps out of the armoury and walks to the police office, thinking through all the items he needs to find.
  ‘Hello,’ he says, finding Sergeant Hopewell behind the desk. ‘Howie and Chris said to speak to you, I’m taking a foraging party out.’
  ‘What do you need?’
  ‘Gunsmiths and hardware stores,’ said Clarence.
  ‘Hi, Clarence,’ Sarah smiles, walking into the office with Terri.

Clarence starts to blush.
  ‘Hello, Sarah,’ Clarence rumbles
  ‘Hello… Sarah,’ Sarah mimics, trying to copy his deep voice.
  ‘I don’t sound like that,’ Clarence chuckles.
  ‘No, you’re far worse… I’m only joking,’ Sarah says, putting her hand on his forearm and making him blush even more. ‘What are you doing here?’
  ‘I’m taking a foraging party out - Chris and Howie need some items,’ he says, as a look of concern passes across her face.
  ‘Are you taking many with you?’
  ‘Yeah, there’ll be a few of us.’
  ‘Okay, well you take care and make sure you come back, I still need that knife training remember?’ She says.
  ‘Um, okay, I will,’ Clarence replies, aware of Terri and Sergeant Hopewell watching them.
  ‘Here you go, there’s a list and a map with them marked on,’ Sergeant Hopewell says, handing him some papers and a map book.
  ‘Thanks… vehicles? Do you have any?’ he asks.
  ‘Check with Ted down at the gate, he’s got all the keys.’
  ‘Thank you, see you soon,’ Clarence says, turning to walk out of the room.

Sarah quickly follows him out.
  ‘Clarence,’ she says, turning him back to face her and seeing his red, flushed face. ‘You don’t have to blush every time I talk to you.’
  ‘I can’t help it,’ Clarence murmurs, looking down at his feet and then slowly back up at her face and her beautiful, dark eyes looking at him.
  ‘Well, just promise me you’ll come back safely,’ she says, looking up and holding his gaze.
  ‘I will…’ Clarence starts to say, as Sarah quickly steps in close and stretches up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. ‘Come back,’ she whispers with soft breath on his face, squeezing his arm. 
  ‘You’ll catch flies again,’ she laughs.

Clarence starts to walk away, his mind whirling and spinning from the kiss she gave him. Still feeling the warmth on his skin and thinking he will never wash that bit of his face again.

After a few steps. he realises he’s forgotten to get more men and turns back towards the planning office and the groups of guards resting outside.

  ‘I need a few to come out with me,’ Clarence says, stopping in the middle of them. They look at each other to see who will go - two men and two women eventually step forward.
  ‘Services or police?’ Clarence asks, as they walked in a tight group towards the gate.

Two of them answer: Services: one Army, the other Navy. The other two explain they are police from the armed response teams, with one of them having previous military experience.

They chat amiably amongst themselves, as they walk to the gate, meeting Ted and arranging to take four vehicles out.

Clarence rides shotgun in the first van and the others have one vehicle each. It takes a while to sort through keys and walk down to find vans that can be taken out from the clogged in fleet, wedged into the alley between the inner and outer wall, but, eventually, they are out and driving down the road and through the estate.
  They stop at a large, multi-chain hardware superstore on the edge of a town; the streets and villages they passed through showing signs of the devastation and decay of urban life. There are burnt out houses and rotting corpses; vehicles abandoned and left at angles, embedded into walls. Bloodstains and broken glass litter the ground.
  The superstore looks remarkably normal, almost surreal; like it’s an early morning Bank Holiday.
  ‘You two stay out front, you two with me,’ Clarence says, taking the two armed police response officers with him, knowing they will be better trained in close quarters fire and manoeuvre tactics.
  ‘What do we need?’ The female officer asks him.
  ‘Nuts, bolts, chains and anything that can be fired from a cannon - also axes, hammers, scythes and anything that can be used as a weapon,’ he replies.
  ‘Cannon? Are we using those old things in the Fort?’ the male officer asks.
  ‘We’re going to try,’ Clarence says. 'You two go for the nuts, bolts and chains and I’ll do the weapons.’
  ‘Roger,’ the woman replies.
  The hardware store doors hang open, smashed and ruined from a previous looting; a least someone else has made the effort to gain entry and save them the time of having to do it.
  They find rows of trolleys inside the large entrance area and each take one and move off into the wide aisles, flanked on both sides with high shelving units. There is surprisingly little damage inside the store. Dried bloodstains and debris littered round the entrance area indicate that something happened but no bodies or corpses remain.

Clarence looks down the ends of the rows of aisles and looks at each of the large signs; finds the one marked Hand Tools and heads that way.
  He aims for the section with the axes and quickly starts scooping them up and placing them into the trolley. He also finds sledgehammers, pick axes, scythes and even long-bladed machetes.

Within a few minutes, the trolley is full. He wheels it outside and asks the guards to start loading, before heading back in and filling the trolley with more items.

He passes the two police officers heading outside, with trolleys full of buckets and metal objects. They nod at one another, just like normal people mooching round the DIY store at the weekend.

Loaded up, they set off away from the store. The female police officer drives the lead van with Clarence examining the map and giving directions to the closest gunsmith.
  ‘I haven’t seen any zombies at all,’ the woman states quietly.

‘Must be hiding,’ Clarence rumbles and goes back to his map reading.

They keep on through the quiet, rural roads, passing fields and woodland and then head back into expensive residential areas of large, detached houses; eventually finding their way into a small market town.
  ‘That’s it, over there,’ Clarence said, pointing towards the only shop that looks fortified and solid.

They drive closer and find a window display of air rifles and pistols, binoculars and hunter style clothing.
  ‘Someone had a go at getting in,’ the woman driver says, looking at the half smashed in door.

Despite the quaint appearance, the shop had been well secured against such raids and the door appeared to have withstood a half-concerted effort to get in.
  ‘There’s blood everywhere out the front, something happened here,’ Clarence said. ‘Turn the van round and back in close to the door,’ he adds, getting out to examine the door closely.

He walks over to the next van. ‘Did you get any big chains?’ he asks.
  A few minutes later, and the van is revving loudly with a thick chain stretched from the tow bar back to the door handles.
  ‘NOW,’ Clarence shouts and the van accelerates quickly, powering away from the shop.

The chain springs up as the pressure pull it and the door is out of the frame with a loud noise of wood and metal tearing.
  ‘Easy when you know how,’ Clarence muttered, stepping through the ragged hole and entering the small shop, seeing rows of shotguns and rifles chained to a display cabinet behind the long counter and boxes of ammunition stacked up in a glass display case.
  ‘Bingo,’ the ex-army man said walking in to see the goods on display and holding a set of bolt croppers. ‘I came prepared,’ the man adds, walking round the counter.

He grips the thick chain in the mouth of the bolt croppers and starts squeezing, then squeezing harder until his face goes red from the exertion.
  ‘May I?’ Clarence steps forward, taking the handles from the now sweating man.
  ‘Clarence takes a handle in each hand and gives a sudden overwhelming push on each, driving the handles back together and severing the chain quickly.
  ‘Yeah, well I weakened it for you,’ the man jokes.
  ‘And I thank you for doing so,’ Clarence replies, smiling, long used to the never ending comments about his strength and size.

He reaches up and starts selecting the shotguns and rifles, twisting at the waist to turn and lay them on the counter.
  ‘There’s some good weapons here,’ the ex-solider remarks, checking through the various rifles.
  ‘Hu-huh,’ Clarence replies, distracted and thinking about Sarah, her dark hair and eyes, the way she speaks and laughs and that kiss, wow that kiss, she actually kissed him. He, the massive, bald-headed, freak of nature, being kissed by someone so beautiful and graceful.

Clarence pauses, holding the last shotgun and staring off into the middle distance.
  ‘You all right, Clarence?’ the woman asks from behind him, making him start back to reality.
  ‘Yep, never better,’ Clarence grins hugely to her, as he turns back to the counter. ‘So… what’s her name?’ she adds.
  ‘Her name?’ Clarence replies.
  ‘The only thing that can make a man smile like that, in the midst of all this chaos, is a woman, so what’s her name?’ she repeats.
  ‘Sarah,’ Clarence rumbles, quietly.
  ‘Oh, Mr Howie’s sister?’ the woman says lightly. ‘She’s very pretty.’
  ‘She is,’ Clarence confirms, still smiling. ‘We need bows and arrows too,’ he adds, remembering why they are here.
  They prise open the ammunition case and unload all of the boxes into plastic bags found behind the counter.

One corner of the store is dedicated to archery and crossbows.
  ‘There’s loads here, Clarence, do you want them all?’ the ex-soldier asks, examining the longbows, compound bows and dozens of packets of arrows.
  ‘Yeah, get everything,’ Clarence replies.
  ‘And the crossbows?’
  ‘Yes, I don’t know anything about archery, so take everything.’
 

And everything is taken - the only thing they leave are the air weapons, on the basis of firing small lead pellets at a massive army of undead zombies will not have that much of an effect.

Within an hour, they find the next gunsmiths; this one located in a much bigger town and already plundered and looted extensively; zombie corpses everywhere.

They drive on through the town, weaving past the debris, until they reach a supermarket fuel station on the town exit road.
  ‘Stop,’ Clarence calls out.

The van slows to a stop, causing the following vehicles to brake suddenly.
  ‘Pull into the garage forecourt,’ Clarence instructs, staring hard to the side of the fuel station.

The van turns slowly and heads into the fuel station.  ‘Look there,’ Clarence points to a set of large wooden gates.
  ‘Good spot, Clarence, very good,’ the driver says, admiringly, seeing the top of the fuel tanker just peeking out over the gates.
  ‘Do you think it’s full?’ Clarence asks, as they get out and walk over.
  ‘That’s almost too much to ask for,’ she replies.

They find the gate locked with another thick chain and padlock. Clarence turns to see the ex-soldier jogging towards them with the bolt croppers.
  ‘Do you want me to weaken it for you first?’ the man asks, light-heartedly.
  Clarence grunts back and snaps the chain through easily, wrenching the chain and lock off. The gates get pulled open to reveal the all-white fuel tanker.
  ‘Does anyone know how to drive it?’ Clarence asks.
  ‘I can, I was in the traffic department and did my heavy goods vehicle training,’ the woman police office answers.