‘Perspex has been self-tapped and siliconed on to the back door to replace the missing rear door window, back seats folded down and a sheet of ply led over them to increase the carrying capabilities and this lot.’ He waved his hands at boxes and cans stacked to the side. ‘Are ours to take with us when we are ready to leave.’ He had a huge smile on his face.
I looked at where his arm waved. ‘By the power of Grey-skull!’ I exclaimed. There were ammo boxes, boxes with explosive warnings, ration packs, jerry cans. ‘What the hell have we got here?’ I asked almost happily.
In his best Game show host-voice he started. ‘We have twenty, surplus to UK MOD requirement SLR rifles and 400 7.62mm rounds each, ten also surplus to UK requirements .45 hi-power Browning hand guns with fifty rounds each. They may be old school but are certainly not obsolete, many of my older colleagues would prefer these to the Sa80 that replaced it or even the M16. Certainly packs more of a punch than the 5.56mm and the .45 browning rounds were a kick in the balls compared to a slap in the face from the 9mm. Four boxes of the wimpier but lighter to carry 5.56mm NATO rounds for our captured American rifles. A crate of hand grenades, claymores, clackers, detonators, plastic explosive and a partridge in a god damned pear tree... Also known as 66mm LAW, light Anti-Tank Rockets.’ He smiled a manic smile as he admired the two five-foot long crates. ‘And that old bean is just for starters. We’ve got SLR bayonets, night vision goggles, ponchos, Camo-netting, gas masks, tear gas, bags of various clothing and what not.’
I glugged the rest of the bottle water, making it creak, crackle and crunch as I drained the last drops from it, and it collapsed in my heavy-handed grip. ‘Best get loaded up then eh?’ Camouflage needed no coaxing, he was on it like gin and tonic, and within no time we were almost fully loaded.
‘Just waiting on a few more bits, but they should arrive about the same time as we have finished lunch. We should go and see about getting Sue cremated and getting her ashes before we leave too!’ Announced a smiling Camouflage. I was tired and hungry and cryptic shite could wait until I was fed, and Sue was sorted.
We made our way down to the morgue in the lower level of the main building. The rooms either side of the corridor were shut but you could see lights were on through high raised, small, thick glazed windows and the noise of people talking and working could be heard from behind them. It was as busy and occupied down here as up on the surface above.
The door to the Morgue was three quarters of the way along the corridor and had big stainless steel covered double doors. Although they were of the swing in and out variety they were bolted very solidly from the inside of the room. Wouldn’t want any of the undead inhabitants getting out from here and running around un-checked would we? I also wouldn’t want to be the poor sod left alone in here with them.
Camouflage and I knocked on the door and waited. We could hear a chair scrape back and footsteps approach from the other side. Flat footed, heavy and deliberate steps. They stopped at the door and we could hear a big clunking noise followed by what must have been a top and bottom bolt being withdrawn. As the left-hand door swung open in-wards we could see a short, squat chap with a spectacular combover, a just slightly larger than Hitler style moustache, wearing a white lab coat semi open revealing a black jumper with a Christmas design on it over desert camo trousers, sandals and orange socks stood in-front of us! Around his neck was at looked like a panic button. He was smiling as he invited us in with a theatrical wave of his hand into his domain.
We stepped in the room and the door was closed with a clank behind us. He spoke. ‘Can’t be having anyone getting out if anything happens can we?’
‘Is that why you have the panic button?’ Asked Camouflage.
He span around theatrically and pulled back his white coat to reveal an automatic pistol and extra clip on his belt and two claymore mines, one on his portly stomach and one at the small of his back. He then pointed to the corners of the room and above the double doors. Looking like big green PIR sensors. ‘Not quite a panic button but should stop anything that isn’t fully dead already from getting out of here and causing any more trouble at least.’ He was still smiling and reminded me of the guy out of the second Human Centipede film. I could also imagine him being a fan of necrophilia or at least copping a feel of the odd corpse that took his fancy. I hoped he hadn’t been getting his podgy fingers all over Sue.
‘You guys here to see Miss Jenner?’ We both nodded. ‘She is just over here, locker 18.’ We followed him to the banks of chilled and sliding lockers and we paused. ‘Seems she has quite the family lineage, what with being related to the great Dr Jenner of Small Pox fame, it could end up being twice that her family has saved the world from such nasty outbreaks.’ This was starting to become a bloody running joke now; everyone knew what her super great grandad did! ‘Has anyone told you what was going to be done to Miss Jenner after her death?’ He asked.
I replied. ‘I was told they would take all of her blood, bone marrow, adrenal glands etc, whatever and as much as they could.’
He was still reluctant to open the locker. ‘That’s right, unfortunately it doesn’t leave much of what she looked like before and.’ He hesitated, trying to find the right, or at least appropriate words. ‘We are medical examiners and don’t reconstruct the bodies for burial like a funeral service I am afraid.’ He opened the drawer a little and sneaked a look. ‘Ah, that’s okay, it looks like they have covered her up quite a bit.’ And proceeded to open the drawer up fully.
Her head came out first. Colourless, closed eyes and her once plump lips thin and the same nothing like pigment the rest of her skin was. Her hair was messy, and forehead wrinkled, no doubt from where they folded her skin back when they took the top of her skull off and harvested what they needed from her brain before replacing the scalp the best they could. The opaque plastic blanket that covered the rest of her body didn’t fully obscure what they had done to her, just blurred like the TV used to do when the news tried to hide gore from their more sensitive viewers. Her once ample chest was now just a concaved blur from her throat down to her groin. I was pretty sure the centipede hadn’t done anything untoward to her looking like that. I nodded and he shut the drawer again.
‘Her cremation is due for noon.’ He checked his watch. ‘In about twenty minutes actually. It’s not the sort of place where there will be a service for her, but I can assure you it will be done with dignity and care despite where we are. I can give you her ashes after if you like?’
‘Yes please, she wants them spread at Berkeley.’ I replied and nodded. He nodded also and we all headed for the doors.
‘Her ashes should be ready for around four pm if that is okay?’ It was and we both thanked the Centipede as he let us out and re-bolted the door. My parents had been buried when they died in a multi-car pile-up in fog many years ago, so the only experience I had of crematoriums was a pet crematorium in Tewkesbury when my ex-girlfriend suggested I took my Giant Lop-eared rabbit Shagger (she used to call him Honey but I called him Shagger as I was forever catching him pinning the Guinea Pig down in the hutch for a quick shag.) to be turned into ashes and kept as a mantle-piece exhibit. All we saw then was the happy and smiling people at reception as we handed him over wrapped in a blanket and then getting him back a few days later in a small plastic lined cardboard box. This was no different really.
Once away from the door Camouflage commented. ‘That’s one guy that takes quarantine seriously.’ I had to agree, whatever the centipede lacked in get up and go he made up for in Claymores and 9mm pistol rounds.
With that unpleasant job done and being doubly sure that I won’t be sat around a fire one day with a hangover after a night of fighting the undead and Sue turning up to turn my boring life back into something exciting and worthwhile, we headed on over to the canteen.
It was fairly busy in here today and I was famished. We joined the queue and spoke to the odd few people that we knew. As much as it pained Camouflage, he always stuck to the same stor
y that Pun had told him to say, that he was an ex-marine, that he had left the service two years before the outbreak. He was a proud man and you could tell that it hurt but he knew and understood that he was indeed more use to us and himself at the school than he was here just being used to mop up the odd crowd of zombies or out in the cold manning gates to a compound where he had no real connection to the people inside unlike the school. Many of the men and women were here from various units, be it rifles, armoured, RAF, Navy even the police, you name it they were here in dribs and drabs. If they were found to be serving then they were made to head to the nearest base. Some didn’t give two shits and were happy to be a part of something and be alive but some you could see certainly didn’t like it.
If I was Camouflage though, I'd have a set of 1970’s Action Man Eagle Eyes in the back of my head to go with his fuzzy short cut haircut, looking out in case someone I knew tapped me on the shoulder and dropped me in the shit by re-enlisting my ass! If all went well we would eat, pack more into the 110, get Sues ashes and get the hell out of here.
Despite being quite strict on portions I managed to get another serving, word had got around about what Sue and us two were about and trying to do so cheers for the extra beef... or was it horse again? Who cared, it was filling a void and tasted fine to me. We finished and took our plates and cutlery to the clearing area for return and headed back to the 110 and the remaining of the packing we had to do. We were only there a few minutes before a chap in fatigues appeared slightly sweating and pushing a pump truck with pallet brimming full of body panels. A bonnet with wheel mount, just what I was thinking of the other day, slam panel and passenger wing with wheel arch extension. ‘This lot any good to you Marc?’ The chap asked and continued. ‘Bonnet and slam panel are brand new and in black epoxy primer, the wing is good second hand but I’m afraid we have no wind-up door glass, all of ours are sliding windows.’
‘Nah, that’s bloody great thanks Tony, really appreciate it.’ Replied Camouflage with a wave. The guy, now known as Tony, waved back, lowered the pallet and walked back off in the direction he came, pallet truck trailing behind him.
‘What’s that for? And who was that?’ I asked.
‘You, you soft twat!’ Came his reply. ‘Can’t have you being bored when we get back to the school! I know your OCD is eating you up inside about the state of your 90. Sorry I couldn’t help with the drivers’ window though. And, that’s Tony. Met him the other night and he told me they had spares lying around and was happy to help. I had to make a few friends and keep myself busy in between keeping an eye on you and keeping you hydrated didn’t I?’
I looked at the pallet of parts. ‘Thanks mate, really appreciate it.’
‘Don’t be going soft on me, you can help me tie it to the roof in a minute once everything is loaded.’
With the 110 all loaded, and bonnet tied to the roof, we made sure we had an SLR and pistol loaded and made ready for each of us in the front for the journey home, our M4s were in the back after being returned by the Paras. A full tank of fuel and we were almost ready to roll out. We just needed Sue’s ashes, so we headed back to the mortuary.
At the door we were only there for a moment before the centipede answered and invited us in. There was no locking of the door behind us this time, he must have been sure that everyone down here was dead, dead, dead.
‘I looked everywhere for a suitable container for Miss Jenner but could only find an empty glass coffee jar I'm afraid.’ He handed it over and smiled, ‘It was almost a zip lock bag, but once I washed the labels off, the jar looked the better choice.’ We all laughed at that, Sue wouldn’t mind the glass jar, it looked like a Dow Egberts coffee jar and that was pretty damn posh to me, come to think of it Nescafe was posh to me, and printed label with her name on it as long as I get to spread her ashes in Berkeley, then shook hands. His podgy hands were indeed as hot and sweaty as they looked.
As we turned to leave I felt I had to ask the million-dollar question. ‘Any idea on how this shit storm all started?’
The centipede smiled the kind of smile a primary teacher gave its pupil before answering an obvious question. ‘Sort of. We are pretty sure the solar flares we had on the morning of the outbreak corrupted and mutated a common virus, killing those infected with it and bringing them back as Zombies.’
Camouflage laughed. ‘John had always said it was the solar flares but still seems far fetched to me.’ He paused. ‘Though zombies roaming the earth is pretty far-fetched I suppose.’
The Centipede continued undaunted. ‘The fact that almost every country started reporting zombies and in many overwhelming numbers at almost exactly the same time seems to confirm it. There was no patient zero as it were. At one moment we had no zombies and then a few hours after the solar flares the world had thousands. Most of the first reported cases came from doctor’s surgeries and old people’s homes, places where you commonly find people with the flu or a similar virus. It seems the only logical explanation for it.’
‘Do you think that Sue’s resistance to it could have been caused by the flares too?’ I asked just spit-balling.
The little Centipede shrugged his white coated shoulders. ‘I am afraid we will never know.’
With that we bid him farewell and headed back up to the ground floor.
Chapter 14
The time was just after four pm. If we took it steady we should be back at the school by seven. Sooner if we booted it, later if any significant hold ups. We would have to swing by the garage to collect the secure comms at least but that should only take a few minutes. We started up the 110 and slowly rolled towards the gates, waving at the odd people we knew and had made friends with over the last few days.
We were met at the gates by Pun and two of his men, they all wished us well and to keep in contact and Pun let us know that he couldn’t get a fly by to see if our return route home was still okay. He said that as far as he knew as long as we followed our original way in back out then it should be trouble free, not much would have changed over just a few days he hoped. He and his men weren’t headed back to Brize Norton any time soon it seemed, they had been tasked with regrouping, rearming, acquiring new vehicles and being sent out to hunt and destroy the Mega Pack that had destroyed the camp field a few days back. When he had reported it with all the pictures, he was told it had been responsible for many such attacks and that as it was close to him and his men he was to use whatever they had including calling air strikes if necessary to destroy it. A few handshakes and that was it, we were out of the gates and on our way back home to the Shire.
As advised we followed the same roads back as we had used to get here. To start with there were the odd pockets of zombies that we could skirt around, we didn’t have to stop to take action against them until we reached the M42 Motor Way and took a slightly wrong way. Right direction but we should have really been on the other side of the motorway to avoid a blockage. Too late now, it would be an eight-mile return weaving in and out and trying to avoid the large group of zombies we disturbed a few miles back, that no doubt would have started following the way we had gone, we would have to find a way through it.
Up front was a snarl up of cars from the hard shoulder to the central reservation and a good eighty yards deep. Originally a car crash that people had tried to get around and then got caught on the soft verge blocking the road further and then getting overwhelmed by zombies… and there was a fair amount of them here. We sat there weighing up our options for a little minute. The fire engine abandoned over on the hard shoulder of the north bound carriage kept grabbing my interest, but I couldn’t figure out how it would help. We kept talking about which were the fewest cars we could move, like a kids sliding tile game, to enable us to get through but the volume of zombies was always the factor that made us start thinking again. We needed to get onto the other carriage way but that would mean unbolting the central reservation and where would we get the tools from. Then it hit me. The reason the fire engine was on my mind s
o much. Cutting gear! The truck would have a generator with cutting gear for getting people out of cars etc in an accident.
We both got out with an SLR in hand each. ‘Be careful, these can pack a bit more of a kick than the M4.’ Camouflage told me. We took cover at the back of the 110. The plan was that we drop a few of the closest zombies then I leg it over to the fire engine and get what cutting gear I can then cut the railing on the central reservation then drive through to safety and home for tea and medals. The SLR was a rifle but didn’t require you to action the bolt for each shot, hence the name Self Loading Rifle and had been in service with the British Army from 1954 to the early 80’s.
We sighted the first twenty or so zombies amongst the cars and started taking them out at a rapid pace. He was right about the kick back, but it felt so much more solid and even if you missed the head and hit one in the neck and it hit the spine the bigger heavier 7.62mm round would take the head right off! They also made a hell of a lot more noise than an M4. Camouflage later told me that when the Australian SAS were in Vietnam, they would take an SLR and cut the barrel off at the front sight, add a cone to the cut down barrel to hide the flash and to amplify the now even louder than normal rifle, then they would adjust the fire selector so that it was permanently on full automatic, then add a bastardised thirty round magazine from a Bren-Gun to fit, sometimes it even had an under barrel grenade launcher like the M4s we had captured. The Aussies used to call it The Bitch and it was so loud that anyone they ran into thought they were engaged in a fight with a platoon of men not just four. Psychological gains against the living may be one thing but it wouldn’t work on zombies that would just walk into a wall of lead regardless just for the opportunity to grab you and bite you.
With a fair few of them down, I left the rifle on the 110’s bonnet, I still had the Browning Hi-Power tucked into my waist band, and ran like a lunatic across the carriage way, over the central reservation and to the fire engine. My god! The smell here was horrendous, I had never smelt anything like it. It was worse than the first time I had met a crowd of them back in the lane of death on my first day out of the house. It was like putrefying death but turned up to eleven. It caught in the back of my nose and the back of my throat making me dry heave. I threw up the first roller cabinet door, while feeling like throwing up myself, on the outside of the truck to reveal hoses and clamps, the next one was straps and harnesses, the third one was what I wanted. Rescue kit. A portable generator with jaws of life for prizing and cutting metal, but what I was after was next to it. A huge petrol driven disc cutter.
The Reanimated Dead (Book 2): The Answer Page 12