The inside of the van looked like a badly kept abattoir. The remains of at least two eaten bodies were inside... on the walls... on the ceiling and a huge puddle on the floor. There would have been room for at least eight maybe even ten of the fuckers crammed in here. The inside stunk of every bodily fluid you could think of in its decaying form and then some! I could feel the bile rising in my stomach but knew I only had water left to give. The rock band playing a drum solo in my head had progressed from marching band songs to eighties rock and would soon be onto Death Metal throbbing against my forehead. I pulled my head back out of the van. Mainly for some fresh air but also to speak to Kev. He had his back to me keeping an eye out for trouble.
‘We have to wake the camp mate. Save as many as possible.’
He was way ahead of me already going for the walkie talkie when we saw rapid movement to our right. I caught site of a figure, possibly two. I couldn’t bring the pump action up quick enough as they approached so gave the first one in line the good news from swinging the butt up into the face. The figure stopped as their legs flipped out in front of them and they crashed backwards to the ground. The second figure stopped with hands raised. It was Sarah’s friend Paul. I looked on the floor and it was a girlfriend of hers. Fuck! Paul was babbling like the mad village piss head. Kev gave them both a quick check over as I covered everyone.
Apart from the broken nose and split lip that I had given the girl with the shotgun butt they were both okay, at least no bites. Kev radioed the gate towers and informed them he was sending two kids over and for them to keep them safe on the platforms if necessary. Moments later we had a call back to say they had received them, but the girl was showing signs of a mild concussion.
Kev looked at me, I shrugged. ‘She not eating anyone, though is she?’ He laughed, until it looked like his head was hurting as much as mine.
He picked up the radio again. ‘Steve! Patch me into the speakers.’ He waited a moment then raised his pistol and fired twice next to the radio. ‘Bang! Bang!’ echoed around the camp from the gun and after a momentary delay, the speakers. ‘Listen up people! We have a breach and possibly eight or more zombies in camp. Those in motorhomes and caravans please turn out your lights, close the curtains, lock the doors and keep quiet unless we announce ourselves. Everyone else please head for a tower or the tennis courts with your hands above your head chanting ‘I’m Human’ so we can identify you and not shoot you by mistake.’
Now the screaming started! People erupted from their tents like headless chickens, some doing as Kev said, giving it the Mo Farrah running with hands nice and high above their heads while others just zig-zagged and cried. ‘Hands in the fucking air people, or you’ll be shot!’ Kev shouted.
‘That way!’ I shouted as I pointed people towards the tennis courts. In moments the MO Farrah’s had gone into the night in the direction indicated. We quickly cleared two tents, both empty and no sign of blood. We quickly zipped them up and moved on. The next was a caravan.
Kev banged on the door as I covered. ‘Anyone in? Security!’
‘Three of us!’ Came a voice.
‘All fine? No bites?’ He asked in a no-nonsense manner.
‘No, all okay?’
‘Okay, stay in, stay low, stay quiet, stay locked. I’m writing ‘three alive’ on the door. Stay until we give the all clear okay?’
‘Okay.’ Came the reply as Kev wrote in black marker pen on the door ‘3 alive’ inside a circle and his initial ‘K’. He threw me a marker pen. Time to split up and he nodded for me to take the next as he cleared the row behind.
I heard shouting from across the camp ‘Identify! Identify!’ followed by a double tap from a pistol. Hopefully that was a zombie down and not just some dozy camper on their way to the shitters for an urgent late-night poo!
My next caravan had no answer. The door was closed but unlocked. I carefully opened the door to see the light was on and two people were sat behind an upturned table as a barricade. ‘For fucks sake, why didn’t you answer? I could have shot you!’ I said frustrated by their stupidity.
The woman holding her daughter replied. ‘I didn’t know what to say?’
I felt like slapping my own forehead, but the hangover was doing that for me from inside already. ‘Are you both okay? No bites at all?’
‘We are fine, honestly.’
‘Okay, please lock the door and turn out the light yeah? Wait in here until you get the all clear signal Yeah?’ I got a nod and I closed the door. As I wrote ‘2’ in a circle with my initial next to it the door lock clicked. How stupid did you have to be to hide behind a table in a caravan when you could have just locked the door.
Something moved behind me rapidly, as I turned it seemed to go past me and under the caravan. I turned again, there was nothing there. This bloody hangover needed to do one big time; I needed a clearer head than what I currently had. I yawned, lifted the pump action and stepped around the caravan. The next caravan was huge and bordering on an American sized RV. The door was wide open, and my heart sank like it had ever so many times this last month. This belonged to the woman who was sheltering nine orphaned kids and before I stepped into the doorway I could smell and taste the iron tang of fresh blood, lots of it. I could hear movement inside which was also lit in 12v lighting. Nothing to my right as I stepped in but to my left four kids no older than six at the most feasted on her like kittens at their mothers’ teats.
She wasn’t moving or twitching which was most likely down to where the young ones took her down and she took the top of her own head off on the metal edge of the work top on her way to the floor. I was feeling really sick now, no, I was going to be sick now! I fought it enough to shoot the first kid, I retched as I took out the second. The third was on his feet as the cartridge of shot vaporised his head and upper torso. I vomited big time, water and bile was all I had inside me and it went all over the shot gun and first two kids. I retched again as the acid fumes of my vomit stung my eyes. I pumped to reload but could barely see due to the stinging and eyewatering. The remaining little one was just a blurred shape slowly rising from the body it had been feeding on about eight feet away from me. I couldn’t aim precisely but at this distance it wouldn’t matter. I pulled the trigger and little zombie flew to the back of the RV landing in a headless lump at the door to the bathroom.
I swiped a kitchen towel off the stove to wipe my eyes and then the vomit from the shotgun and my gloves. I couldn’t look at what I had done. I know they were zombies and it certainly wasn’t the first zombie kid I had killed but I didn’t really need to record this head movie in glorious technicolour tonight. I put four more shells back into the pump action and stepped out into the fresh air.
My foot hadn’t even touched the muddy excuse for grass when I heard a rifle shot and a zombie hit the ground in front of me, pretty much skidding to a stop on his face. Top right side of his head was missing. I turned left and saw a double flash from a torch from tower four. I assumed it had come from Marc and had saved me walking right into the zombie as he rounded the caravan. I gave a wave and received another double flash. I was going to call him Camouflage from now on and he certainly was a very big Marine.
I closed the door and wrote ‘0 alive 5 dead’ on it and my initial. The next few were tents, belongings strewn everywhere and some blood in one. All were empty though, so I zipped up and carried on. I heard Kev curse then fire one shot before zipping up a tent. I looked over and caught his eye.
‘Fucking zombie cat!’ He spat. That tickled me somewhat and I let out a chuckle.
‘Really?’ I had to ask, even though I was still smirking.
‘Probably not but it had been feeding on a human, horrible fucking things are only good for keeping the rats in their place!’ It may not have been a real zombie cat, but it amused me somewhat. I had heard that the police once did a study of bodies they found at home with pets. A dog left in a house with its dead owner will wait almost a week before it decides it will have to eat its owne
r to survive. Cats will only wait a day and a half! By all accounts the goldfish were the only ones to leave them alone!
Four more shots and what sounded like a bat on metal rang out in the direction of the other guys. Kev’s next clearance was a converted horse trailer box. When I say converted, they had just shovelled the shit out, put in a wood burner and bunk beds. The ramp was down, and a wall and door made of pallet wood was open into it. Kev had taken three steps up the ramp as two women wearing swimming costumes came hurtling out towards him. There was no doubt that these two were from van zero as we had encountered such zombies on our first shopping trip by the pool and must have been where those two blokes got them from.
They were stained in blood from head to toe, theirs and others, no doubt from the van and anyone else they had tucked into tonight. He let out two three round bursts to drop them but, in his panic, they weren’t head shots. He let off another round into the closest woman’s head, by that time I was by his side and took the head off the other. ‘Fuck, they were quick!’ He exclaimed. I told him about the one that Camouflage took out earlier, that it was almost running. He looked inside, just a carcass, so we both closed the heavy ramp and wrote ‘0 1 dead’. He thanked me and we moved on back to our own sides again. Some shouting and several rounds cracked off in tower one’s direction.
I wish I had bought one of the walkies with me so that I could find out what was going on, but who was I kidding, I could barely think and walk straight, too much more shit to try and do and I’d shut down. Another tent, this time a small three-man dome tent was pretty much collapsed with a duvet and a pair of jeans hanging out of the door. It was wriggling around though. ‘Identify yourself!’ I shouted. The movement stopped. ‘Don’t test my patience, identify yourself!’ I repeated. The tent started to rise from its collapsed position to about six feet tall and lunged for me! I jabbed the barrel into where I though the face would be, and the tent stumbled backwards, but with the pegs still staked into the ground movement was very limited and it bounded back towards me. It’s nose and mouth were now visible through the rip that the barrel made. ‘Boom.’ Point blank shot erupted from the gun disintegrating the head and scorching the tent material where the discharge was so close. The body dropped and the material surrounding it billowed in a reverse of Marylin Monroe’s famous dress on vent picture. I pumped the shot gun for the next round and the empty cartridge span out of the ejection port still smouldering and landed on a flagstone used as a cooking platform making a hollow ‘clonk, clonk’ noise as it did so.
My bloody forehead couldn’t take much more of this, it actually felt like my brain was bleeding behind my eyes and even adrenalin was losing the battle against my bodies need for much needed sleep. I topped up with cartridges, last thing I needed was a ‘Click’ when I needed a huge ‘Bang’ next time I pulled the trigger. Stepping around the zombie tent my foot caught up in a guy rope and I stumbled, thought I had my footing back and then stumbled again falling forward! Twat! I Slammed right into the van in front of me with my head and shoulder. I was seeing stars now and the urge to just close my eyes now was huge. I had no sooner fully fallen to the floor when a hole burst open in the van where my head had just been. I made to get up and it happened again. I stayed low and shouted. ‘Kev!’
He was already bounding over to the van, jumping over the fallen tent. ‘Stay down!’ He reached the van and I heard the sliding door open and a struggle happening. I got up and around the van to see Kev dragging Crocs out of a blue Citroën Relay van with his 9mm pistol to Crocks head. He was babbling some bollocks about his mate and stunk of piss. Kev sat him back down in the open van door and passed me a now empty cut down side by side shot gun, just like my two. ‘Seems you’re not the only sneaky fucker eh?’ He said as I took it.
Kev questioned him as I kept a watch. Crocs just sat there not even trying to hide the fact that he had pissed himself and the huge wet patch in his grey jogging bottoms. All I could hear was incoherent babbling and Kev repeating questions.
Kev turned to me. ‘Craig here.’ Crocs to me. ‘Said his mate John was bitten and tried to get in the van. They had an argument and Craig stabbed him a few times. He thought you landing against the van was John trying to get back in.
Crocs did look upset, no doubt about it. Kev walked back towards the van a few steps to talk to him again. I rubbed my eyes to get the tiredness out of them but when I opened them, I saw movement under the van. My hungover brain wouldn’t engage speech function fast enough to warn them both, so I reached forward and grabbed Kev’s collar, pulling him back at least two steps. He was unbalanced but didn’t fall over. He was about to round on me when he saw it too. Four little arms and two heads reached out from under the van and grabbed one of crocs legs dangling out of the van! Kev and I both let rip in unison with our weapons but not before one of them had ripped the calf muscle off Crocs right leg with their milk teeth.
Crocs was screaming. I’d like to say it was like nothing I had ever heard but I had heard a lot of it tonight alone. I didn’t blame him as a lot of my pellets must have hit is lower leg at the same time as obliterating the young kids head. The kid Kev had despatched was led there missing the side of her head, but her mouth was clamped in a lipless sneer as it refused to unclamp her jaws from the calf muscle ripped from Crocs leg.
‘What the hell do we do with him now?’ I asked Kev. He only thought for a second.
‘Sorry Craig!’ He pulled out his cuffs and grabbed Crocs arm and cuffed it to the base of the passenger seat inside the van. Whipping off his belt he used it as a tourniquet on Crocs leg. ‘I can cut your leg off just above the knee mate. Never done it before but if we are quick, we could beat the infection. You could still die of blood loss, regular infection, shock or if I’m wrong the virus still but I think it’s worth the chance.’
‘Have we got time for this Kev?’ I Asked. Screaming, a shitload of shouting and four more shots from the other guys. They only sounded about thirty yards away now.
‘Take my leg! Bloody take it!’ Shouted Crocs.
‘Brian! Get in here and shut the door.’ I did as I was told, I shut the door when I was in. The van was well lit to be fair. ‘Grab that frying pan and put it on the gas burner.’ I knew what was going to happen. I put the gas burner on on the makeshift kitchen cabinet and placed the frying pan on it. Despite them being two messy bastards the pan was clean, so I didn’t have to worry about having hot grease around when it was up to temperature. ‘How sharp is your sheath knife?’ Kev asked me.
‘Shave a nats ball sack mate.’ I drew it from the sheath, waved the blade over the burner for a bit then poured some cheap Tesco Vodka over it from a bottle I found next to the burner. He had cut away the grey jogging bottoms with his knife and then re-sheathed it. It did the job but wasn’t up to cutting flesh, you could say it was about as sharp as a spoon. Kev took the bottle and gave it to Crocs whilst searching around for something.
‘Take a good few slugs of this Craig then bite down on this. It’s gonna hurt like a mother fucker, okay?’ Crocs took hold of the bottle and the wooden spatula that Kev found. Kev put Crocs leg out straight as I knelt on the upper part and prepared to hold Crocs down. Crocs took one last swig and bit down on the spatula. ‘I’m going to try and do it in just two passes. First through the skin down here.’ He indicated three inches below the knee. ‘So I’ve got skin to wrap around the stump and the second pass at the joint through the flesh and muscle. Okay?’ I didn’t look at Crocs as I nodded my agreement. Kev quickly and deftly sliced 360 degrees around the leg. There was a lot less blood than I had thought there would be. He yanked the skin up to the knee. At this point Crocs who had been screaming through a spatula and clenched teeth went as limp as a lettuce leaf. Kev then did a 360-degree cut around the knee joint then stuck the point of the knife into the joint and twisted. The mangled limb left its joint with a sucking noise as it hit the van floor with a thump.
‘Frying pan please Brian.’ He asked as he bundled the remai
ning skin into a nice package at the end of the stump. I let go of the limp Crocs and picked up the now red hot and pinging frying pan.
‘Ready?’ I asked surgeon Kev. He nodded and indicated where to place the red-hot pan. There was an immediate smell of bacon as his skin sizzled. Crocs came to life suddenly, lifting his head and opening his eyes, spatula falling from his mouth as he did a silent scream before succumbing to unconsciousness again. I kept the frying pan on the stump for as long as Kev indicated. He looked at the stump.
‘Skin looks all fused but badly blistered. No bleeding at least.’
‘Let’s hope this was all worth it and he lives.’ I quipped. I doused the stump in cheap vodka then wetted a towel and wrapped it around it. That was it. He was out from the pain. We left him in the closed van with what was left of the vodka next to him, Shut the sliding door and wrote. ‘1 bitten. Leg cut off’. Neither of us knew if it would work so this was the safest thing to do and was worth a try at least.
Chapter 24
Shots rang out from tower two. At least five shots and sounded like a rifle. Next caravan was empty as was the pup tent next to it. Out of nowhere I was getting a second wave of energy, unfortunately it was accompanied by another wave of nausea and I vomited what little bile I had left onto the pup tent. The back of my throat now had that horrible chemical burning feeling and mouth tasted like rum flavoured acid.
The Reanimated Dead (Book 1): Into the Cotswolds Page 20