The Reanimated Dead (Book 1): Into the Cotswolds

by Wakefield, Trevor

  The next day came and went the same, watching the news and peeping out of the net curtains. Night-time though was a lot noisier by far. A house down the road – a standard two story with large ground floor windows was being breached from what I could make out of the screams and shouts. It sounded like a family summer BBQ party where too much alcohol had been consumed and someone in the family was determined to tell someone else in that family that they were a pain in the arse/ a drain on the family or were just hated. As families do. If I didn’t know that there were lifeless bodies of other neighbours tearing limbs and strips of flesh off the living – for now at least – residents, then I may have grabbed a few cans and burgers and tried to blag an invite. Made me pleased as hell that I had no downstairs windows.

  Chapter 3

  This kind of shit went on for almost the next three weeks or so. I couldn’t tell you what day it was. It was like the days between Christmas and new year. Unless you must work those days each one blends into itself and you don’t know your ass from your elbow. This was exactly the same but I kind of knew I’d never have to go back to work, so it didn’t bloody matter. Peeping out from two layers of net curtain, watching old neighbours lifelessly wandering the street, luckily none of them took any notice in my place and just ambled on past on their aimless walks. Less and less voices to be heard, less screams, less vehicle activity, I was pretty pleased with myself that I hadn’t bought any attention to myself.

  BBC news was now being beamed from its Bristol studios. The London studio was still being used and working but from what I could gather Bristol was now the safer and more secure option. The news about Bristol was still positive and on the up all the time with more troops arriving and them being still infection free behind their walls and fences.

  It would seem that whoever was making decisions at a government level, be it COBRA or whatever, were sending troops to vital areas of the country. These vital areas seemed to be towns of major food production, livestock farming and power stations. They were being sent for obviously protection and no doubt much needed labour to run and help out.

  The recent and biggest story on all the news channels was that the Royal Marines, who were in the area of Jersey and Guernsey for exercises at the time, have taken, and secured both Jersey and Guernsey and they are also infection free! Although the French had tried to beat them to it, they were repelled and 1 of their ships sunk by just 80 commandos. Nothing like this had ever been seen since 25 lone marines held off the entire Argentine army, navy and air force for a day killing many men, shooting down helicopters and taking out a corvette ship by a lone sniper on the first day of the Falklands conflict until they ran out of ammunition. They had just one injured man and the Argentines have never released how many they lost that day. Other news that was most welcoming was that our overseas forces were being recalled. Army, Navy, Airforce, special forces or whatever were being messaged to leave their theatres of operations to come back and bolster our struggling forces here in the uk. I just hoped that there was still going to be plenty of us left to save when they got back!

  In the toilet I hand dropped my shorts and was just about to crouch over the number two black bucket to relieve my bowels when there was a large bang on the garage door. Bollocks, it was in the departure lounge but was going to have to stay grounded for now. I quickly pulled up my shorts and quietly made my way to the lounge and grabbed the cross bow off the table. Already made ready I moved slowly around the room but not directly to the window so as not to create a moving shadow across it. The bang came again, but much louder this time. I looked out and saw a blue five door Citroën Saxo reversed up on my drive. The driver’s door was open, and the driver was out and pushing the door at various points, obviously looking for a weakness. He wasn’t going to get in, I was bloody sure of that, he was just trying his luck which I probably would have in his situation.

  I had already decided that my best defence was to keep a low profile, draw no attention and I would get none in return. The same now, if he can’t get in and I don’t react then I should receive no more unwanted attention and he will sod off on his merry way.

  He turned back to his car. I smiled. I knew it, now he’ll bugger off and I can get back to the dump bucket. He didn’t go back to the driver’s side, there was a woman in the passenger seat and two kids in the back. The Saxo was a small five door car but with them and their belongings in it was crammed to the roof. Against the tailgate glass you could see bedding squashed up against it. She passed him a tow rope through the open passenger window and climbed over the hand brake into the driver’s seat as he walked to the back of the car.

  ‘Oh, he fucking isn’t!’ I said to myself. At the table I put down the cross bow, grabbed an empty glass jar and filled it with white spirit. I drew back the double layer of net curtain and flung the window open as wide as it would go. She had just backed the car up to the garage door and he was crouched down tying the rope around the centre handle of the garage door. I knew it would stand up to zombies or someone trying to lift the door, but it was only aluminium and wouldn’t stand up to being pulled out of its frame by a car, even one so small as theirs.

  I said nothing, just threw the glass jar onto the glass hatchback of the Saxo. The glass window exploded into granules as did the glass jar, spreading white spirit over the bedding, the exterior and the bloke at my garage door. He totally shat himself, staggering backwards as he tried to quickly stand up. It was no good, he was soon flat on his arse covered in glass and spirit. Looking up he shouted. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

  ‘Undo that rope now and fuck off and I’ll forget this happened.’ I said.

  He was still on his arse and visibly shocked. ‘We didn’t know you were in there; I promise.’ He pleaded.

  ‘I know.’ I said as I pulled out a cheap zippo style petrol lighter. ‘That’s why I haven’t lit you up yet. Now sod off!’

  He was frantically scrabbling to his feet now, waving his hands at me. ‘Please don’t! I have a wife and two kids in the car. I knew you had a land rover, it’s better suited than our little car. We thought that maybe you were dead.’

  ‘Well obviously I’m not so probably best you jog the fuck on!’

  A female voice chimed in. ‘Can we please stay with you?’ His wife had stepped out of the driver side of the car and was standing with both hands up in the surrender position. ‘We had to flee our place down the road earlier. We need somewhere secure to stay for a while.’

  ‘I’m afraid not. I’m not feeling very sociable at the moment and I’m almost out of food myself as it is.’ I wasn’t lying. The fridge and the freezer were now empty – luckily the power had not gone down which helped me out no end- I was down to beans, pot noodles and vacuum-packed casseroles and I hated them all!

  She continued. ‘Our son has been bitten and has a terrible fever; we need somewhere to look after him.’

  ‘Look I’m sorry but I wouldn’t let you in anyway but with a bite victim I’m certainly not!’

  The husband was back on his feet and decided to join in with the conversation. ‘We are not stupid.’ He said with his eyes reddening. ‘We know he will die soon; we just want to look after him until he does.’

  I could feel myself becoming an asshole but before the words could form on my lips telling them to sod off for good, I saw movement up the street. ‘Two seconds!’ I shouted and left the window. I grabbed the Recurve bow and three arrows off the table and ran down the stairs two at a time. I unlocked and bolted the front door, stepped out whilst simultaneously knocking an arrow, drawing the bow and taking aim. The bloke was wide eyed and visibly looked as though he thought I was going to kill them. ‘Get the kids in and upstairs quick!’ The woman could see me looking through her and beyond and instinctively turned around. About thirty or so yards away six zombies were making their way towards us. The two of them didn’t need asking twice, the woman opened the driver’s side rear door and pulled out first her daughter by the wrist and then an 80l ru
cksack. She pushed her daughter ahead of her as she slung the rucksack over her shoulder. The husband already had the passenger side door open and had scooped the son up in his arms.

  ‘Hurry the fuck up people, let’s move god damn it!’ I hissed as they filed through the door past me. ‘Up the stairs, first on the left!’

  As the bloke and his son filed past me four out of the six zombies had reached the bottom of the drive twenty or so feet away. The first thing I noticed about them was the smell even from this distance, the reek of rotting flesh got right in your face. I quickly shut the door, locked and re-bolted it and followed the family up the stairs. I put the bow and the three arrows on to the table with the other weapons. The bloke was about to open his mouth to speak but I hushed him. I walked past the assembled people and crept up to the open lounge window, I reached out and tried to close it as slowly and quietly as possible. I needn’t have bothered as the garage door rang out like a bass drum as the six assembled zombies beat their arms and decomposing faces against it trying to get in. I pulled the double net curtains back into place anyway. I turned around. ‘I hope you all like your tea black with no sugar?’ The woman smiled.

  Chapter 4

  Tea in hand I sat them all down on the settee and dining chairs. We made introductions, he was Simon, she was Caroline, the girl was Sarah and the boy was called Zack. Zack the zombie flashed through my mind a few times and made me chuckle inside. I made a mental note not to mention it and shut that shit down while I had company.

  I explained the house rules regarding lights and noise, the toilet facilities, kitchen facilities and sleeping arrangements – basically they could have my room (and mattress back)as a family room but suggested that Zack stay on the bed in the spare room where at least one person from the family was keeping an eye on him at all times. They all agreed and seemed happy with the arrangements.

  Our garage door zombie groupies had grown from the original six to a noisy and smelly group of eleven or twelve with John and Barbara directly across the road itching to join in. Well they were just going to have to watch from a distance at their large lounge window, with the long and probably very expensive venetian blinds half ripped from the wall above. It looked as though they had turned whilst locked in their house and now just looked like a pair of zombie window lickers.

  The noise from the banging, scraping and moaning at the garage door was getting worse. I started hoping that they had memories like goldfish or something else took their fancy pretty damn soon.

  I helped set Zack up in the spare room on the third floor. The poor sod, he was as pale as a pint of milk, burning up and drenched in his own sweat. His exposed chest was blue and purple with veins showing like a mass of tangled wires. I left Caroline with him, mopping his brow and attending to him and headed back down to the TV. Simon was sat on the settee leaning forward scanning the available news channels.

  ‘Bristol seems to be on top of it all, we should try and get there it’s only down the road.’

  I snorted. ‘oh yeah, good plan. You don’t know what’s on the journey there. If you survive the journey you’ve still got to get into the city, which means you have to get through hundreds, possibly thousands of what are at my garage door, avoid getting bombed or shot by trigger happy troops and then probably quarantined, most definitely split up and maybe even placed in a squalid camp where the risk of infection could be like a time bomb waiting to explode!’

  ‘Well we can’t stay here for fuck sake!’ He exclaimed.

  ‘We have to. We must wait for everything to settle. It’s all too damn crazy out there now. Until there is more organisation and information on how to correctly and safely enter Bristol the best place is here and safe.’

  ‘But we have no food!’ He countered.

  ‘We?!’ I replied. Now he had pissed me off! ‘I had plenty of food for at least another week on my own here…’ I didn’t mention that I hated what I had left. ‘…at least until I let you lot in!’ That shut him up. ‘Give it a day or so and we will see what has developed. There may be a more local stronghold that we don’t yet know about, so we don’t have to travel to Bristol.’

  It was Simons time to snort a reply. ‘Like where?’

  ‘Fucked if I know! Maybe a local police station or a securely fenced factory or even a supermarket, who knows?!’

  Simon laughed. ‘Well you obviously know fuck all!’

  ‘Hang the fuck on mate!’ I shoved my pointed finger towards his face. ‘You were the ones out there unprepared trying to break into my garage and steal my car were you not?’ He didn’t reply. ‘And thanks to you I have a shit load of dead neighbours trying to get in here and rip us all limb from limb whilst eating our brains. They never even bothered to say hello before and now they are dead I very much wished it had stayed that bloody way!’

  ‘So, what is your plan? Stay here and starve to death?’

  ‘I’ve told you. Wait until everything calms down a little bit more, kit out the 90 and then venture out.’ I had anticipated his next question and decided to shoot him down before he could ask it. ‘On my own, once Zack is…’ I thought for a moment choosing my words carefully for a change. ‘…Free of his infection…’ letting the implied meaning sink in. ‘I want you all gone.’

  ‘Don’t worry, it won’t take long!’ he snapped. ‘You’ve seen how he is.’

  I nodded. ‘How did he get bitten?’ I asked out of curiosity.

  ‘We had a house two streets up, that’s how we knew you and your Landover were here.’ He shuffled on the settee, not so much to get comfy, more like he was shaking something off as he spoke. ‘Our house was overrun by the end of the second week of the outbreak.’ He looked at me. ‘Is that what they are still calling it?’ I shrugged but didn’t get chance to answer as he continued. ‘We evacuated to the garage, the car was already packed and ready to go when we were, but we thought we could hold up in the garage for another week or at least a few more days.’ He sighed and stooped forward. ‘Last night though Zack saw the pet cat in the garden and without anyone knowing what he was going to do, unlocked the door and ran out into the garden to get her. Sarah raised the alarm as soon as the door opened but he was gone. I rushed out after him with the first thing I could grab off the garage bench. He was pinned down by one of those things.’ He was choking up but shook his head and continued. ‘I kicked it off and hit it with the chain and padlock I had grabbed, popped the fuckers head right open it did.’ No flicker of emotion as he explained about killing the zombie. ‘I dragged Zack back in by the neck of his t-shirt whilst waving the lock around like a fucking loon and Sarah shut and locked the door behind us but then they knew we were in there. Caroline was the first to notice the bite on his wrist but what could we do?’ Tears were streaming down his face now. ‘We bandaged it up after washing the wound with bleach, but it obviously wasn’t working after a few hours. By this morning the garage door was almost matchwood with all the pounding and clawing so we had to leave there and then.’ He looked up and laughed through his tears. ‘And six minutes later I’m on my ass covered in glass and petrol!’

  ‘White spirit.’ I corrected. ‘And I’m sorry.’ He didn’t say anything else, just stood up, put his mug on the table and went off up the stairs to Zac’s room. I went quietly to the window again, there were eight of the makeshift drum players left but their moaning, banging and scraping was still just as bad as earlier.

  Talk of kitting out the 90 had given me ideas. It already had CNC cut security grills on the rear sides and rear door windows, but I started to jot down a few more ideas I had in my head whilst staring aimlessly out of the window for a few minutes.

  Zac’s cries of agony reached me from upstairs as his family gathered around and comforted him. The poor sod would soon be dead and joining the growing ranks of the undead. Poor lad was just trying to rescue a cat and in the flash of gore covered teeth he was as good as dead, just a matter of time for the infection to do its thing.

  I took another look o
ut of the window as movement caught my beady eye. It now looked like John and Barbara had found a way out of their house and were shambling around the garden. I remember John once inviting me around one Sunday afternoon for a few beers and to show me the huge Koi Carp pond they had had made just this spring. He hadn’t told Barbara that it would cost almost the same again to fill it with the fish he wanted and not even sure if he had got any at all yet. I was secretly a little bit gutted though that I wouldn’t get to see John or Barb – or even both – fall into it whilst stumbling around.

  The garage door continued to bang and bring me back to reality from my zombie Laurel and Hardy stunts. I decided I’d leave the family to it for a bit, I felt like a spare wheel in my own home now, so off to the garage to make a bit of noise of my own. I unlocked the house to garage door and flipped on the lights. Three weeks now and we still had power and mains pressure water. This was either down to the government’s plan or just plain luck. Either way I was very grateful.

  As I said the 90 already had window grills for security around the rear but I knew I had some domestic aircon grills in the garage put aside for a day when they would come in handy. I figured that today would have to be that day to free them from the dust and spiders that they were covered in behind the bench. I also figured that days were becoming a little less guaranteed and if things were to be done, they had to be done now. I fashioned 2 window grills to go onto the drivers and passenger’s door. I bolted them direct to the frames but still allowed the glass to be wound up and down as needed for ventilation or whatever. The windscreen grill required a bit more scrap metal I had hanging around in the dark corners so that when it was fitted it was approx. 2” off the screen to allow the wipers to still function.