Wild Strawberry: Book 3 Ascent (18 page)

             
Neil cursed at the zombies and cursed at the tape deck.

             
As the pulled into the industrial estate, he tugged the last bit of tape from the machine.

             
“Alle-fucking-lulia!”  He punched the air, pulled another cassette from the glove box, gave it a kiss and placed it in the slot.

             
The lorry was now in the compound of the Bunker.

             
It was time for him to draw the attention of the zombies.

             
He flicked on the main beams, started flashing the hazard lights, and turned on the interior light to give the creatures a good view of the fresh meat.  As the music started he sounded his horn in time to the beat.

             
“Whoo hoo!”  He whooped, screamed and banged his head as the opening riff to Paranoid started.

             
He remembered seeing Ozzy Osbourne perform it live, and for a moment all his worries, pains and mortal dangers were miles away, as the music took him back in time.  He sung along.  The zombies reaching out for him seemed unreal, like extras in a heavy metal music video.

             
This is living
he thought to himself as he continued singing at the top of his voice.

             
“
Finished with my woman ’cause she couldn’t help me with my mind.

             
People think I’m insane because I am frowning all the time
…”

*   *   *

Will cursed as he drove straight into a zombie he hadn’t seen, its blood and brains spraying the windscreen, then smeared blackly by the wipers.  His poor visibility was now reduced to almost nothing.

             
He was driving slowly in a low gear, trying to keep engine noise to a minimum.  As they approached the gate to the compound he had to slow further.  The actual gate was blocked by a bus that had parked in front of it.  That was the way the survivors had first come to the Bunker.  But pursuing zombies had smashed the mesh fence next to the gate, so he had to drive across that instead.

             
Will cursed as several of the tyres burst passing over the razor wire that had topped the fence.  The truck had enough wheels to keep going once the wire was flattened but steering became erratic.

             
Particularly difficult was reversing up to the Bunker’s entrance.

             
Will had disabled the reversing warning noise and smashed the reversing lights.  These had been important precautions, but made negotiating the track backwards extremely difficult.

             
“I just hope to fuck they’re watching out for us,”  Will said nervously.

*   *   *

Neil’s beeping and flashing lights were joined by loud music, and the survivor’s voice which could be heard half-singing and half-shouting over the crackly recording”

             
“
All day long I think of things but nothing seems to satisfy

             
Think I’ll lose my mind if I don’t find something to pacify
…”

             
The monsters were crowding round him now.  He heard the rear window smash, and the driver’s side window cracked as a creature butted it with its face.

             
“Shit!”

             
Neil was brought back to his grisly reality.  The street ahead of him seemed to be filling up with monsters.  It was going to be like running into a wall.

             
Despite the panic rising like bile in his guts he carried on singing,
             
“
Can you help me occupy my brain?
”

             
“
Oh yeah!
”

             
He slammed on the brakes, screeched the protesting gears into reverse and set off backwards along the way he had just driven.

             
Glancing in the rear view mirror he saw hands reaching in towards him. “This is not going to fucking work!”

             
He was speeding backwards as fast as the car could go.  The headlights illuminated the vast and seemingly endless crowd of the undead rushing towards him.  The car lights turned the open wounds and bloodstains around their mouths into an unnatural, glittering black.

             
It was hard to control the car as it reversed at speed, bumping into and over the monsters, with Neil’s view obstructed by the creatures trying to claw their way in through the broken rear window.

             
As he sped backwards the car hit something solid.  He couldn’t tell if it was a car, wall or bollard, but the effect was to spin the car sideways, so that it was wedged between a wall by the side of the road and a car in the middle.

             
“Shit!”  He had seconds to act and one wrong move could be fatal.  More of the creatures slammed into the driver’s side window, and the parked car behind allowed the creatures finally to pull themselves into the rear seat.

             
Neil leapt across to the passenger seat and out of the side door.  One of the car lights was still flashing, and the music was still playing at full volume.  Suddenly he was painfully aware of being next to the object that was attracting every zombie within earshot.

             
Outside the car the smell became overpowering.  Spots of rain in the night air were the coldest thing Neil had ever felt.

             
Ahead of him was a huge crowd of zombies; behind the crowd was smaller, but just as deadly.  To one side there were just a few, but they were already making their way over and through the car and would be on him in seconds.  To his other side was a seven-foot wall.  It was unlikely he could climb it in time, but it was his only chance.  He leapt at it, his hands gripping the top as he hauled himself up.

             
He almost burst into tears as he pulled himself onto the wall only to see the yard beyond full of zombies, which were now also reaching for him.

             
He carefully eased himself up to stand on the wall.  Their hands could reach his feet; and he found himself walking on fingers which meant having to pull each foot up as he would if walking through sticky mud.

             
“This is not going to work.” He spoke aloud as he walked along the wall, feeling as though he would fall at every step.

             
At the far end of the wall was a lamppost with a ‘30 miles per hour sign on it.’  It was the only place left for him to go.

             
As he reached the post his foot slipped on some zombies’ fingers which split wetly under his feet.

             
His leg slipped and he felt cold hands grabbing at it.

             
“Fucking scratching the other leg now?”  He shouted at the monsters.  As he gripped the lamppost and hauled his foot back up he felt teeth grazing the skin of his ankle.

             
“A great fucking end to the perfect fucking day!”

             
He climbed from wall onto the lamppost.  He stood on the sign while his hands gripped the pole.

             
“Fuck, I do not want to die tonight,” he murmured to himself.  The pain in his leg told him he would be disappointed; he looked down at his ankle which was bleeding profusely.

             
Then with defiance, and as loud as he could, he started to sing along.  At least he would sing until the tape ran out.  And he could still continue his job of distracting the zombies from the other survivors.

             
In the flashing light from his car below Neil could occasionally catch the vaguest glimpse of activity by the Bunker.  The plan seemed to be was working.

             
When the tape came to a halt, he shouted across the space between him and the Bunker to the others, “I’m bit!  It’s too late for me, but you guys carry on.”

             
Now that the music from the tape had come to an end it was up to Neil to make some more noise to attract the zombies.  He didn’t know what to sing, but then remembered the last moments of his favourite film,
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
.  There was only one song to sing:

             
“
We’ll meet again

             
Don’t know where

             
Don’t know when

             
But I know we’ll meet again

             
Some sunny day
…”

             
The irony of the words, sung against the darkness and noise of the undead scrabbling for his flesh, made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.  If he met his friends again he would no longer be like them.  His ankle ached, and the loss of blood was making him feel dizzier than ever.  He took a deep breath and carried on singing”

             
“
Keep smiling through

             
Just like you always do

             
‘Till the blue skies

             
Drive the dark clouds far away
…”

*   *   *

             
It seemed impossible to Misha, but someone had been looking out for them and as the truck approached, the huge, thick, steel door of the Bunker opened.

             
“Hello?” A tall, thin man with dark hair and glasses regarding her with a slightly troubled expression.  Just then Siobhan also appeared round the side of the truck and the man smiled.

             
“Jim this is Misha; Rob is in the car with Will and the guy singing is Neil, but he’s infected.  That’s all the introductions we have time for; we’ve a truck full of food and we need to get unloading.”

             
As Jim ran back into the Bunker to get more help Misha heard the song carry across the howling of the night:

             
“
So, will you please say hello

             
To the folks that I know

             
Tell them I won’t be long

             
They’ll be happy to know

             
That as you saw me go

             
I was singing this song
…”

             
She smiled sadly.  She had fought for her friend, and now he was using his last breath to fight for her.

             
Will jumped from the cab and rushed up the hill that housed Bunker to arrange the solar panels and push the cables down into the service tube that had been prepared for them.  On top of the small rise the wind felt stronger, and he had a heightened awareness of his senses.

             
He thought he saw movement in the car park on the other side of the Bunker’s compound, but couldn’t be sure, and he had too much to do to waste time staring at the darkness.

             
Neil was still singing loudly, and Will had to resist the urge to join in”

             
“
We’ll meet again

             
Don’t know where

             
Don’t know when

             
But I know we’ll meet again

             
Some sunny day
…”

             
The crowd around the bottom of the lamppost was growing.  Neil was finding the smell of them almost unbearable.

             
Will was pushing the last cable into the pipe when a figure loomed out of the darkness.  It was an obese man in oversized jeans and a ripped sweater.  The creature’s large stomach was covered in large bite marks.  It moved with a speed that Will had not been prepared for as it bounded towards him with its mouth open wide.

             
Will smashed it in the head with his club; the sound of cracking bone was as satisfying as it was disturbing.  The creature’s forehead was now concave, a large dent appearing over its left eye.

             
Will was able to sidestep the charging undead behemoth, but it turned remarkably nimbly and made for Will again.

             
This time he did not have time nor room to get a good swing, so the next blow was nowhere near as effectual.  Will fumbled with the club, and almost dropped it.  In desperation he punched towards the creature’s nose.