The Reanimated Dead (Book 1): Into the Cotswolds

by Wakefield, Trevor

  I made some canvas holsters out of old tool rolls I had around the place and attached them to the chassis at various points and put a machete and spare tyre leavers in them. That way as long as the 90 was close then I’d always have quick access to a skull crushing weapon. I resisted the opportunity to kit it out Death Race style with spikes on the wheels but took a leaf out of Mad Max’s book and decided to up the amount of fuel I had on board. I had three 20l metal jerry cans full from when I filled up the Wednesday eve before shit went everywhere. Five pence a litre off from Tesco’s was not to be sniffed at. A full tank and 60 extra litres should see me ok for a few hundred miles over normal. Will be nice not to have to worry about fuel for a bit too. Come to think of it I had another 20l can somewhere, but it was full of Red diesel that I used to use for a generator at a farm unit I used to rent when I needed from time to time. Red diesel in a road going car was a no no normally but I didn’t think that the Customs and Excise peeps were going to give a shit about someone using it in their vehicle now.

  It was late, my head felt like the zombie drummer band were living and marching in it. The banging on the door had subsided to probably three of them now. I turned off the lights and locked up and headed up to the lounge. Everyone was still up with Zack. I put the TV on low and slumped into the armchair, pulled a few fleece blankets over me and slowly drifted as the news burbled on.

  Chapter 5

  I woke up early. I wouldn’t say before the others as I think they stayed awake with Zack pretty much all night. The kettle was cold so didn’t look like anyone had been down for a brew. I made myself one and then boiled the kettle again in case they came down. Sod all new on the news so I turned the tv off and brew in hand headed back down to the garage again. With the back door to the 90 open I started to load it up. Twelve 2l bottles of spring water along with cooking stove, pots and pans, several sleeping bags – the 90 had a fold out roof tent on the heavy-duty roof rack, with a ladder that drops down from it. It could comfortably sleep 3 but unless I was somewhere secure, I’d rather sleep inside, as cramped as it is, surrounded by glass, metal and new grills than a sheet of canvas or nylon that was for sure.

  I filled up the back with expedition stacking crates and various other camping kit, spares for the 90, tools (both mechanical and DIY). My figuring on this one was that someone handy at fixing, modifying, making things etc. could be deemed useful to any group I may come across. The rest of the boxes were empty. My packing and modification list were only part way through so they would get their turn to be filled soon. They would also be useful for food and supplies when I find somewhere to raid.

  For now, I’d had enough, I needed more tea plus it was time to go upstairs and see what the situation was, I could hear someone in the lounge above me walking around. I locked the garage door and headed up the stairs. When I entered the lounge, I could see the girl Sarah was watching the news curled up in my blankets on the sofa.

  ‘How are you doing?’ I asked her.

  ‘Better than my brother!’ Was her short and honest answer. She was about 14 years old, tall, skinny, with bear trap braces. For some weird and random reason, the braces started me off thinking about gold teeth and fillings and how many zombies had them, whether the gold would be infected and how much they would be worth in this new phase in human civilization.

  ‘How is Zack?’ I asked, cutting away from my random and useless thoughts.

  ‘Well he’s not dead just yet, won’t be long though.’ Her eyes were red from crying, probably not just for her brother but for what the world had planned for her and her family in general from now on. I climbed the stairs again up to the bedroom Zack was in and popped my head through the door.

  ‘How’s he doing?’ I asked, trying to be friendly and concerned but not too upbeat for them to think I didn’t care.

  Caroline turned and looked up from where she was sat on the floor holding both Zack’s hand and Simons as they looked over him. ‘The fever is bad, but he is unconscious at the moment.’

  Simon answered my next question before I asked it. ‘He’s definitely unconscious as he is still breathing.’ He looked at me, he had been crying too. ‘But it won’t be long before he’s gone.’ He lowered his head.

  ‘Okay.’ I said, not knowing what else I could say or do. ‘I’m putting the kettle on for a brew if you fancy it?’ I got a slow nod from each and walked out of the room closing the door behind me. In the kitchen I hit the kettle switch and started making the brews. Last few clean cups, I’d wash some up once I’d made these. Popping my head around the lounge door I saw that Sarah looked asleep, so I didn’t bother asking her if she wanted one.

  With Simons and Caroline’s brew in hand I climbed the stairs again. As I reached the top step, they both came out of Zack’s room. Simon was holding Caroline as she shook and cried uncontrollably to his chest. ‘He’s gone.’ He said.

  ‘Dead?!’ I asked in shock. Simon just nodded. ‘Fuck!’ I exclaimed, thrust the cups of tea at them both which they took then shoved them both to one side and pulled the door to the room shut. ‘He could turn at any time!’ My mind was racing as much as my pulse. I knew this time would come but wasn’t sure how I would feel. Right now, I was feeling bloody nervous.

  Sarah must have heard and came running to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Mum!? What’s going on?’ Caroline cried out that Zack was now dead. Sarah ran up the stairs to her mum and dad and they all hugged and cried.

  I was upset for them too obviously but now we had a zombie in the house. No one knew exactly how long they took to change, the news had reports of a couple of minutes all the way up to 18 hours. He had to be taken care of sooner rather than later.

  No time to flap, calm that’s what we needed, calm, straight and level heads on from now. I placed a hand on both Simon and Caroline’s shoulders and spoke firmly but also as nicely as I could. ‘Right people, let us all go down to the lounge, here isn’t the place to be now.’ They all did as I asked, I ushered them into the lounge and sat them down and told them how it was going to be from here out. ‘Right…’ I looked at them all in turn so that I got their attention, they were all sobbing, I wasn’t going to stop that, nor did I want to. I didn’t know what they were going through, I had never lost a kid of my own. ‘Zack is now dead. I’m massively sorry for you, I really am. I’m not going to insult you and say I know how you fell as it will be a lie, but it is a cold hard fact. In possibly minutes he is going to be back on his feet, but it won’t be him.’ I let that sink in for a moment with them all looking at me. ‘We now need to finish him.’ Their expressions didn’t change. ‘We have all seen the news, what will happen. It needs to be done.’ Still just looking at me. ‘I Propose that I kill him with the cross bow hopefully before he turns, and we can bury him in the back garden where you can all properly say your goodbyes. It may be the last time any of us get to bury someone we love.’

  Surprisingly I got a nod from Simon straight away. I looked over at Caroline, I thought she was going to argue but she smiled briefly then hugged Sarah. She spoke as she pulled away from Sarah’s shoulder. ‘I’d like that.’ She said. ‘A bit of normality at least.’

  ‘Okay.’ I replied, quite relieved that my idea had gone down so well. ‘I’ll get the cross bow.

  The crossbow was cocked and ready on the lounge table ready. Simon, Caroline and Sarah didn’t move, they just stayed cuddling and crying on the settee, so I just picked up the cross bow and headed for the stairs. My plan, in my head at least, was to walk in, put the cross bow to the poor lad’s head and shoot a bolt straight through his brain, job done. Plans I make usually never go to plan but you had to start somewhere. Time to shit or get off the pot as they say.

  I approached the door of Zack’s room quietly and stopped, took several deep breaths and told myself repeatedly that this was not an innocent little boy anymore but a real-life zombie. I wasn’t actually afraid; I was more excited than anything. I grabbed the door handle, put the ball of my foot on the base of
the door, bought the cross bow up into the aim, turned the door handle and pushed the door open with my foot.

  ‘Fuck!’ Zack wasn’t on the bed! Sudden movement in my right-hand peripheral vision. I started to turn to meet the movement at the same time as zombie Zack made a lunge at me. He caught the door with his arm as he reached for me. Luckily his flailing arm swung the door between us, shielding me from his full-on attack, but also stopping me from using the crossbow on him. I took a step back and with my left foot I kicked the door as hard as I could just under the door handle. The door wasn’t solid wood but one of those mock panel doors with honeycomb insides. It cracked and my foot almost went through it. Anywhere other than under the handle where it is strongest, and it would have. It connected full on with Zack as it swung back into the room making more cracking and splitting noises as it flung his little body the eight or nine feet across the room. As he hit the wall the plasterboard took an imprint of his shoulder and head but there was no delay to him getting back up for another go from shock or being stunned as any normal person would have been. As he stood up from the floor, I took a long stride forward, bringing the crossbow up to just below my chest height and shot the bolt. The bolt flew less than 3 feet and smashed into his head about ¾ of an inch above his right eye. There was no hesitation like in the movies where they stand still for a second or so and then fall. Nope, he just hit the floor like a sack of wet shit.

  I turned to see all three of the family in the hallway looking through the now broken door at me. They all looked shocked to see their son and brother in a crumpled heap on the bedroom floor but didn’t say anything. I turned to them. ‘Can you please turn around for a moment; you won’t want to see this.’ They all turned with no questions asked as I bent down to retrieve the bolt from the poor lads’ forehead. I tugged it gently at first, almost worried I was going to hurt him, but I knew how much force was needed to pull it out, so I put my foot on his head and pulled again. This time it came out no problem.

  With the bloody bolt in one hand and the un-cocked crossbow in the other I left the room. ‘You can use his bedding to wrap him in as a shroud if you like.’ I said as I started walking down the stairs. I turned back. ‘I’ll get a couple of spades from the garage and make a start…’ in the lounge I re-cocked and loaded the crossbow and left it on the table as I headed for the garage. As I descended the stairs to it, I could hear them laying poor Zack out on the bed and fussing over him. I unlocked the house to garage door and walked into the garage. The door wasn’t being used by my dead neighbours now as a drum anymore, so I stole a look out of the spy hole. They may not have been beating the shit out of the door anymore but three of them were still having after party talks on the drive. They must have some kind of sense that something was going on in here but couldn’t work out what. I grabbed two spades off the garden tools rack – I must remember to take one with me when I leave the house. My house had two ways out into the garden, the first was a metal staircase cum balcony via the kitchen door and the second was a back door from the garage straight out onto the patio. Once they were wrapped up and ready – and the hole dug- they could bring Zack down the outside stairs and I’d go out the garage door and start digging.

  The garden wasn’t that big and was half lawn and half flower beds, it had a nice 6-foot-tall sturdy fence all around with no gate making it quite secure. I found a nice area of lawn next to some rose bushes in the flower bed. To be fair it was the only area we could bury him in as the other side of the garden had semi filled holes of my own bodily waste. I marked an area just over four feet long and two-foot-wide with the edge of the spade and removed the turf, setting it to one side carefully for refitting.

  I laid an old plastic tarp out to one side of where I was to dig to place the spoil on. I don’t know why I did it, not as if anyone was going to worry about the lawn being a mess, I hadn’t mown it for several weeks as it was. I suppose it was always something I would do doing that kind of job. After about twenty minutes of digging on my own Simon came down the kitchen stairs, head low and each tread clanking with each of his steps.

  ‘That’s a lovely spot.’ He said.

  I stopped digging and smiled. I hoped it was a friendly smile and not a weird scary smile. ‘Best in the garden.’ He picked up the spare spade, his eyes were all red and puffy. ‘is Zack ready?’ I asked.

  ‘Almost.’ He sniffed. ‘The girls changed his top and given him a clean, now they are wrapping him in the bed clothes.’ He hefted the spade then thrust it into the dirt at the other end of the partially dug grave. ‘I can’t leave you to dig a grave for our son without helping, can I?’ He smiled ‘Like you said, being buried is a luxury that most of us won’t get soon.’ We dug the rest of the grave without speaking until the little grave was about three and a half feet deep. Simon went off to collect Zack, Caroline and Sarah. He carried the tiny bundle that was Zack’s lifeless body with Caroline and Sarah behind him down the clanking outside staircase and across the lawn to the tiny grave site. He laid him down by the side of the hole and I gave Simon a hand to then lower him down in. Simon and I then filled the hole and re-laid the turf back onto the tiny mound. Caroline laid some roses on the middle of it.

  I looked at all three of them and said. ‘I’ll leave you to it. I’ll be in the house if you need me.’ With that I walked off and left them to their quiet words and tears.

  Chapter 6

  Back in the garage to take my mind off little Zack’s burial I started tinkering again. This time I thought about a book I had read about British security services in Northern Ireland in the 1980’s and 90’s. They modified the lights on their undercover and pursuit vehicles but not in the way you would think. Rather than upgrade them they fitted kill switches to their brake lights. This is so that although enemy spotters would see lights moving at night, with no brake lights visible, from a distance they couldn’t tell if the cars were stopping (often for a secret drop off or pick up). Also, during pursuits or evasion the driver behind would find it difficult to predict what the driver in front was doing or planning.

  This was the first modification I was planning. A vehicle can also be identified by its rear light pattern and a Landover more easily than most, not only that but with only headlights on and heading away from someone its harder to judge speed and also blacks out the back of the vehicle making you less of a target at night. This was the second mod I was planning. By having just one headlight on – especially a Landover circular headlight- an observer may mistake the one headlight on its own as a motorcycle and therefore less of a threat than a vehicle that could hold five or six-armed people. This was the third light mod I was going to carry out.

  Whilst making a switch panel, running, taping, soldering and connecting wires all over the 90 I could hear movement upstairs, they had obviously finished their graveside mourning. I still didn’t know what to say to them at the moment so decided it best to leave them to it for another hour or so as I pottered on with this.

  About two hours later I was all tested and happy with my afternoons work, my 90 was semi James Bond like, though no ejector seat. I came back upstairs after locking up again, not that I didn’t trust them, but they were here as they tried to nick the 90 in the first place and grief does strange things to people, so I’ve heard.

  In the lounge I found that they had packed up – all of one rucksack. Caroline explained that they had said they goodbyes to Zack and were ready to move on. Simons idea was still to get to Bristol even though news reports were asking people to refrain from trying to enter the city until dedicated border patrols and quarantine centres had been set up ready. Several people had been killed trying to scale fences and breach defences. You couldn’t blame the guards; they were in an infection free zone and wanted to keep it that way.

  They both said they were grateful for the few days’ shelter even if I did threaten to toast them on my front drive when we first met.

  It was getting very late in the day and would soon be dark so I convinced
them to stay one last night, when would be the next time their bed had a comfy mattress I asked. Zombie activity out the front was dwindling so by tomorrow morning they should have a safer start and a full day of daylight with which to navigate the roads……I also had some Southern Comfort and Rum left, what better way to toast the life of their little boy and wish them the best on the road tomorrow.

  Waking after a good night’s sleep helped by drinking until the captain put his foot down, I decided I would leave the house today too. There was now sod all food left in the house anyway. A couple of pre-packed camping food packets in the 90 but I hated hot pot so today was a good day to fly the nest.

  As I rolled off the settee and scratched my balls I decided to look out of the window and see what the day had instore for us all. Their car was gone. I was going to rush into their room and tell them but there was something on the lounge table. It was a cardboard fish finger packet bent into a greetings card shape with captain birds eye giving me a cheeky wink on the front of it. As I opened it there was a note explaining why they had left early, didn’t want to wake me and wished me luck for whatever I was planning.

  I wasn’t offended and I wasn’t worried. I always hated awkward goodbyes.

  In the kitchen I threw in one of the last tea bags into a cup and grabbed the last of the malted milk biscuits I had hidden away and headed back to the settee with the news on.

  As I mentioned earlier, Bristol was holding its own and was hoping to be able to take in refugees within the next ten days or so. The Navy, several tornado fighter planes, the marines and SBS have successfully now fought off two attempts by the French to capture Jersey and Guernsey after being previously beaten to it during the first few days of the outbreak. Reports are coming out of France that it has no Government, can’t control its own borders and its armed forces are acting alone and unguided in its attempts to capture the islands.