Wild Strawberry: The Motorcycle Diaries (4 page)

             
“Yeah,” agreed Jeffrey, “but we need to be careful.  We have to ask,
what is the truck doing down such a small road in the first place?
  There must be some one around…”

             
“…alive or dead,” cut in Terry, finishing Jeffrey’s sentence.

             
Joe did not say anything, nor look up from where his face was buried in Jeffrey’s back.

             
“Joe?” Terry asked, “what do you think?”

             
Jeffrey shook his head, and Terry turned back to the house.

             
“So what’s the plan?” Asked Terry, looking hopefully to Troy and Jeffrey.

             
“How’s this?”  Jeffrey spoke slowly, thinking aloud, “one of us drives round the yard a few times; if anything is in there it will come out after the noise.”

             
“Then what?”

             
“Either we try to kill them,” continued Jeffrey, “or we lead them away from the house, like the Pied Piper of Zombie Town, then lose them and return to a nice, new empty home.”

             
“Jeffrey?”  Terry put a hand on Jeffrey’s shoulder, “you’re a bloody genius.”

             
Jeffrey smiled grimly.  “All we need to decide is should we all play Pied Piper, or just nominate one of us?”

             
“I’ll do it!” Troy volunteered.

             
“Troy darling!”  Jeffrey looked shocked, “you could get killed.”

             
“I could get killed waiting round here.  But I’m the best biker here, especially off-road.  You know it makes sense.  If any of us can do it, it’s gonna be me.”

             
Terry grinned, and said, “I want to argue with you about being the best biker, but I’m not going to!”

             
“Fuck, Troy, are you sure?”

             
“Yep,” Troy nodded, “just get of sight behind that hedge, and get ready to make a swift getaway if a hundred of them come running out.”

             
So saying, Troy kicked off and revved his engine noisily, heading down the small road towards the house.  He skidded round the garden, circled the house and made as much noise as possible.

             
Feeling confident, Troy pulled a wheelie the length of the garden, but almost crashed when they appeared: two creatures burst out of the front door of the house.

             
One looked almost comically like a stereotypical farmer, in its white shirt with rolled up sleeves, and black waistcoat.  It was paunchy and bald, and its bushy sideburns framed a mouth dripping with saliva and blood.

             
The other creature, also male, was wearing a torn denim jacket and jeans.  Half of its face was missing: the flesh hanging in flaps like a tattered curtain.

             
“Love the denim look darling!” Troy quipped sardonically, as he steadied his bike and tried to steady his nerves.

             
They were running directly for him, his turning space was very limited.  He looped round the truck, hoping they would stick together and maybe do a few loops before heading off down the road.

             
However, without warning, a third creature leapt out from the front of the truck.  Troy’s instinct had been to turn away, but in the split second he had to make a decision, his aggression got the better of him. 

             
“Fuck you!” he spat, pointing his bike directly at the creature.  It was a woman, with curly hair, matted with blood, and stuck to one side of her head.  She was wearing a woollen sweater that had partially unravelled, revealing a series of deep bite marks on her stomach and ribs.

             
He pulled back slightly on his handlebars, moving his weight backwards, going into another wheelie, and struck the zombie in the chest with the front wheel.  It went under the bike and Troy skidded over the body, bones crunching and blood spraying under the wheels.

             
The bike lost traction as it mushed the corpse, and Troy bumped against the truck, once, twice, then veered out of control towards the farmhouse.

             
Troy tried to stabilise the bike, and leant to turn away from the building.  He managed to turn ninety degrees, but skidded sideways into the wall.  For a moment he was still, his wheels spinning, digging a small trench in the grass.

             
Meanwhile, the other two monsters had almost caught up with him.

             
He forced himself to ease off on the accelerator, slowing down so that the tyres could bite.

             
When his pursuers were almost on top of him he started to move, slowly at first, the zombies keeping pace with the back of the bike.  Then with a burst of speed he approached the access road, and finally led the creatures away from the house.

*   *   *

The middle-aged bikers’ gang waited until the sound of Troy’s engine was a distant buzz before they wheeled their bikes silently across the road and into the yard outside the farmhouse.

             
“OK people,” Jeffrey whispered, “everyone look around, make sure they’ve all gone, then meet back here in five minutes.”

             
Joe did not move; he stood in the yard staring into space.

             
Jeffrey noticed him and put a hand on his shoulder.

             
Joe flinched from his touch.

             
“Sorry,” said Jeffrey, “you stay here and keep watch for us?  Can you do that for us Joe?”

             
His friend did not answer.

             
“OK, then.” Jeffrey trotted off to explore the house and grounds.

             
He almost trod on the remains of the woman Troy had run over with his bike.  One arm was broken just below the shoulder and flapped uselessly; the other ended in a pulped mess just after the elbow, and the stump was waggling furiously.  The face was barely recognisable as human, but a snapping mouth was still visible, and hungry.  The back must have been broken, as the creature did not move its legs.

             
“Oh please!” Jeffrey said disgustedly, and looked away to carry on with his search.

             
After five minutes they gathered again in the yard.  They had found nothing more than the mangled corpse by the side of the truck.

             
Jeffrey stood, silently, looking down the road where Troy had disappeared.

             
“Well?” Terry asked

             
“Let’s give Troy a few more minutes,” Jeffrey pleaded.

             
They waited…

             
Joe continued to stare into space…

             
Terry wandered about the yard, kicking stones and whistling quietly to himself…

             
Jeffrey scanned the horizon, biting his nails…

             
After twenty minutes of this they decided to go inside and prepare for Troy’s return.

             
“It’s more than possible that they’ll find their way back here,” Terry pointed out anxiously, his arms wrapped around himself as he spoke.  “They may retrace their steps, they may follow Troy, or some primitive homing instinct may survive in their rotting heads.”

             
“Comforting,” said Jeffrey, sarcastically, “what do you want us to do about it?”

             
“I dunno, I just think we should do something.”

             
“Well OK, we have to get ready for Troy’s return,” Jeffrey stated, taking charge once again.  “Get weapons, and barricade the house.  We can block the road pretty effectively with the truck.  Then all we need worry about are those that come in from the countryside.  I could be wrong, but I suspect there’ll be a lot less of those.”

             
Terry asked, “Anyone able to drive that thing?”

             
“Me,” volunteered Jeffrey with a smile, “I’m H.G.V. Positive!  Got my licence driving trucks for the Territorial Army.”

             
Terry looked incredulously at Jeffrey.  “No way!”

             
“You’d be surprised at my hidden talents,” boasted Jeffrey with a wink.

             
“Yeah whatever!”

             
“OK then,” Jeffrey clapped his hands.  “Terry, would you look for weapons?  Axes, hammers, crowbars, anything hard, spiky and easy to use.”

             
Terry nodded.

             
“Joe-” Jeffrey looked at his friend seriously “-Joe, why don’t you just sit down here?”  Jeffrey led him to a sofa and guided him into it.

             
“Right, I’ll check for food.”

             
Terry found a machete, an axe and a variety of hammers, searching the tool shed.  Jeffrey found a pair of shotguns and asked Terry if he could shoot.

             
Terry sniffed.  “Never tried.”

             
“Then I suggest we saw the barrel off yours.  Makes it useless at long range, but very effective up close.”

             
“I don’t want to be up close with any of those things again.”

             
“Neither do I, but we don’t want to waste shells.  This way when they get-” Jeffrey stopped and corrected himself, “-this way if they get up close you get a weapon that’s going to be hard to miss with.”

             
“What about you?”

             
“Oh I’ve told you already, I used to play soldiers at weekends with the Territorials.”

             
“Keep the gun with you at all times; just make sure you have the safety-catch on.  You don’t want to blow your arm off when you bend down to tie your shoe-lace.”

             
Jeffrey looked out of the window, and asked, “what’s keeping Troy?”

             
Terry said nothing; he didn’t think Jeffrey would appreciate his thoughts on the matter.

             
“I’m going to go out after him.”

             
Terry held up his hand, saying, “Wait a minute mate, and think about it.  Now don’t over-react when I say this, but Troy might be dead.”

             
“Oh nonsense,” Jeffrey retorted, and tried to wave the idea away with his hand as if it were a bad smell.  “He’s the best rider amongst us, and he’s smart and fit.”

             
“Well let’s just think about what
could
be happening, OK?  If he’s dead, then he’s dead and going out there is not going to help him.”

             
“But if he’s alive,” Jeffrey protested.

             
Again Terry interrupted, arguing, “if he’s alive he’s either on the road, in which case he’ll be back soon…”

             
Jeffrey nodded, this was what he wanted to hear.

             
“…Or he’s hit trouble and survived, in which case he’ll have found somewhere safe, even if it’s just up a tree.  And if he’s climbed a tree he’ll be able to last there til morning.  It’s starting to get dark; we won’t see those things coming, so you should wait till morning.”

             
Reluctantly Jeffrey agreed, but before they settled down for the night he drove the truck into the access road.  It fitted snugly against the hedge on either side.  It was not a solid barricade, but it would stop any creatures wandering aimlessly down towards the house, and it was poised for a quick getaway if necessary.

             
Most importantly, in Jeffrey’s eyes, Troy would be able to get in the truck if he squeezed against the hedge.

             
Next Terry and Jeffrey arranged the food they had found in the kitchen cupboards alongside all the food they had taken from the garage.  There was enough for a few weeks, a month if they were careful.

             
“Well it could be worse,” said Jeffrey, “besides this is a farm; there must be something out there we can eat.”

             
“We got these-” Terry held up his shotgun, “-we could hunt.”

             
“We could.  But I’m not sure if it’d be a good idea to make so much noise.”

             
Terry shuddered, “OK you’ve got a point.”

             
“But,” persisted Jeffrey, then he trailed off, lost in thought.