Alice winced at her words, “Is that safe?”
“She’s right” Victor nodded, earning a look of irritation from Bella, “What? I’m just thinking, if they haven’t turned and they have had trouble up here, the sudden sight of a group of strangers wandering around their house is going to make them think we are either ghouls or looters…we stand a chance of getting shot for trespassing”
Sighing heavily, Bella held his gaze, staring past Alice as she raised an eyebrow, “So what, you want us to go and knock on the door…and if they are ghouls we are going to let them know we are here and where to find us”
He groaned, head shaking, “For fuck sake, well, I don’t know then…you decide”
Bella turned away staring back out of the window at the farmhouse, her voice grim as she shook her head, “We need to do something, its getting dark real quick”
She was right. In no time at all the setting sun seemed to have turned to a sliver on the horizon, and the farmhouse was less visible than it had been amid the darkness of the open moorland.
“For fuck sake, we’ll try the door” Bella gave a sigh, one hand about to open her door, only to freeze as beside her Alice shook her head quickly.
“Wait…wait a minute”
“What?” Bella glanced back, then turned to stare out through the windscreen, “What is it?”
“The farmhouse” Alice nodded, a hand rising to point at its bulky shape amid the rapidly growing darkness, “Why are there no lights on in there”
As one Bella and Victor followed her gesture, a curse escaping the bearded man as he realised that she was right, “Fuck…you’re right”
“Does that mean they are dead?” the voice of Alice was tense, her eyes shifting as she glanced at the darkness around the farmhouse, and he grimaced, shaking his head as he met her gaze.
“Maybe they weren’t home”
“No” Bella pointed with a hand, “There’s a jeep down there beyond the house, I saw it there when we pulled up…someone was home”
Dog nodded, grimacing in dread as he studied the building before them, then turned to look at his companions , “So, what do we do…assume that they have turned?”
“We have to” Bella nodded, “Right?”
Alice grimaced, “Better to be safe than sorry”
“Shit” Victor grimaced, picking the shotgun up out of the footwell and frowning, “We have this with no shells, Alice has the baton and I have the taser I don’t know how to use…we’re fucked”
“I bet there are more shells in the house, more than likely more guns too” Bella turned from him to study the building, “I’ve never known a farmer not have guns…we just need to get to them”
“Ah” Victor gave a chuckle, “That’s all, good”
For a moment the three of them sat in silence, and then Bella gave a grim chuckle, “I suppose at least we’ll be able to see them OK in the dark what with them being white…small mercies eh”
“So, we have a plan?” Alice raised an eyebrow.
“Sure” Bella nodded at her, “We get to the house, get inside, find the shells for the shotgun, then we secure the farmhouse and get the others”
“You make it sound so easy Victor sent her a grim smile, “What if we encounter any ghouls?”
“Run” Bella shrugged, “We’ve learnt that they seem pretty impervious to harm, shit, even bullets don’t seem to have any effect on their thick skin”
As Victor grunted in acknowledgement, Alice shrugged, “Back at the hospital, Jiyaa hurt the one that had been her brother by stabbing it in the eye…could you shoot them there?”
Bella nodded, “We can try…it’s softer than their skin for sure…Dog drowned one too didn’t you?”
He chuckled, “Yeah, but I don’t think there is any chance of me doing that on this hill though”
“There’s something else” Alice stated, drawing their gaze once more, “Back at the hospital, me and Lauren found one on an operating table, unconscious, looking like it had changed mid-operation…it was open wide at the stomach and we saw inside it…the organs seemed to have a tougher skin upon them, like their outer skin…only the heart seemed vulnerable to harm”
As Bella let out a curse, her features grim, Victor clicked his fingers, “We don’t need to run!”
“What?” the two women eyed him in confusion and he nodded, “When me and Moonshine were chased near some woodland, we got trapped near a fence and we stopped moving…the ghouls couldn’t see us…it was as if we had vanished”
“I remember you mentioning that” Bella nodded.
“Why?” Alice raised an eyebrow, “I don’t get it”
“Me neither” Victor gave a shrug, “But it’s another option for us…we need to test it again”
Again they lapsed in silence, the tension high, and then Bella nodded, “Are we all ready?”
Nodding his head, Victor threw her a grim smile and opened his door, “Come on, let’s get this over with before I change my mind”
Without another word, he slid from the vehicle, holding the door open for Alice as he stepped to the door on the side of the rear of the ambulance, opening it a crack so that he could see inside it.
Instantly, a horde of faces stared back at him, a myriad of emotions passing over them as they saw him staring in, and Victor released a shaky sigh as he realised none of them had changed.
“What’s wrong?” the nurse standing closest to the door, Lauren, asked him, “Is everything OK?”
He nodded, his voice low, “We have finally made it to that farmhouse that I saw from the parking area. Me, Bella and Alice are going to check it out…it might not be safe, you guys stay here, see is there a lock on the inside of this door?”
Leaning around it, the nurse frowned, then nodded, meeting his gaze once more, “Yeah”
He nodded, “Lock it when I shut the door, don’t open it until you hear me knock three times”
Lauren winced, “Be safe”
“Sure” he forced a smile, throwing a wink at Emily as she sat watching him, his stomach knotting as he saw the fear on her face, and then he stepped quickly back and shut the door tight, forcing away the memory of his daughter as she had given him the same look moments before the house had exploded in flames, killing his family.
“Are we all good to go?” the voice of Bella was a whisper in his left ear, and he cursed, turning to face her in the darkness, head shaking in shock.
“For fuck sake, I nearly died”
Winking at him, Bella began to move away around the front of the ambulance, the empty shot gun clasped ready in her hands, Alice close behind her with the police baton extended.
Grimacing, Victor fished the taser from his pocket, and stared down at it as he walked through the darkness behind them, wishing that he had taken the time to work out how to use it when there had still been some light to see by.
It was shaped like a gun, made of hard yellow plastic, and grimacing, he slid his fingers around the handle, nervously touching the trigger.
Ahead of him, Bella was almost halfway to the front door of the farmhouse, her movement slow and measured, her army training evident, and behind her Alice was twisting her head back and forth, her face pale in the moonlight from above.
Raising his head, Victor studied the moon for a moment as it stared down at them from amid the dark storm clouds, and then it was gone, plunging them back into virtual darkness again.
“For fuck sake” he muttered, then froze, head turning as he caught a patch of something lighter in the darkness of to his right, “What the fuck…”
The moon emerged just as the ghoul was almost upon him, its powerfully built body garbed in a dirty pair of blue overalls, a body warmer like the one that Victor was himself wearing over the top of them. Snarling in excitement, the bald-headed, callous-skinned figure struck him like a battering ram, throwing him backwards to lie on the mud. Pain from the injury in his side instantly coursed through him, and for a second, he almost passed out,
only the shock that he was just feet away from the steep drop to the moorlands below keeping him conscious. Above him, the ghoul gave a roar, the sound taken up by another of its kind somewhere off to their right, and cursing Victor brought the taser up to point at its face, dragging back on the trigger. Instantly two red beams of light shot out from the end of the taser, settling on its cracked features and with a curse of anger, Victor shifted his aim so that the red dots were on the eyes of the beige ghoul and then fired. There was a crack as the taser discharged, followed by a scream of complete agony from the ghoul as two small metal darts shot into both its eyes, the wire connecting each of them to the weapon sending electricity shooting into its face.
With a grunt, it toppled and fell back to the ground, and grimacing, one hand clasped to his side, Victor made it to his knees, watching as suddenly Bella and Alice were beside the fallen ghoul, each hammering hard blows down upon its features with their respective weapons.
Another snarl suddenly split the night and the trio turned towards it, Victor cursing as he saw another ghoul come charging from the far end of the house in the moonlight towards where they stood, larger than the one they had just killed.
It was just clearing the threshold of the property when suddenly the front door of the farmhouse swung open and a light came on, a voice calling out suddenly, “Roger!”
The ghoul turned towards the newcomer, snarling in hatred as a woman surged into view from the house, then it was staggering back as she swung what looked like a saucepan up towards it, water splashing it right in the face.
From where they stood, the trio watched in disbelief as the woman rushed back inside the relative safety of the doorway, watching in terror as the ghoul thrashed and twisted, hands dragging at its features, what looked like steam rising from its face. Off balance, and blinded, the ghoul continued to stagger away from the house, and gritting his teeth, Victor began to slowly run towards it, head down as he changed his angle, charging at it from the direction of the house.
He struck it hard with his left shoulder, the pain of the impact dropping him to his knees, his vision swimming as he clasped at his side in agony, watching as the ghoul staggered back and fell from the slope, its animal screech rising back to reach them before it was suddenly cut short.
Blinking, Victor turned to watch as Bella and Alice began to run towards him, and then he fell to his face in the mud, the darkness claiming him.
Chapter Thirty One
“What a fucking day” Lauren exclaimed nearly two hours later, her hands wrapped about a mug of steaming coffee, head shaking as she sighed.
Seated at the table with her, Alice, the silver-haired Bella, and the kindly Doctor Green smiled.
A comfortable silence settled over them all for a moment and then the young nurse shook her head once more, her voice thick with emotion as she glanced at each of them, “I didn’t know any of you this morning…now look at what we have been through…I cant believe this is happening”
At her words, Alice who was seated beside her, reached out and placed a hand upon her forearm, squeezing gently as she nodded, “We will be OK”
“Will we?” Lauren sent her a worried look, trying to smile but failing miserably, “This time last night I was sat in my flat, worrying like mad about meeting Brandon today for the first time and taking him to lunch…now I am all he has”
The others at the table winced at her words, the doctor raising his cup to his lips as he sipped and then nodded, “I was at my home too, reading a book, drinking tea…quite boring really”
“What book?” Alice asked, smiling at the doctor and he gave a chuckle, shaking his head slowly.
“A horror book, about a large house in Durham that is inhabited by the ghosts of twelve serial killers…it really is quite disturbingly fun”
There was a soft murmur of amusement at his words and Alice nodded, “I was at my place of work, preparing the last body for the night”
“Body?” Lauren sent her a curious look and on the other side of the large wooden kitchen table, Doctor Green raised an eyebrow in curiosity.
“Are you, yourself a serial killer, Alice?”
“Not quite” she shook her head, smiling, “I am an embalmer, I have my own business in Newcastle”
The doctor gave a nod of admiration, and smiling awkwardly, Alice turned to the silver-haired woman sitting on her other side, “What about you Bella…what were you doing last night?”
The woman winced at her words, a sad smile creasing her features as she closed her eyes for a moment and then shrugged, “Watching television with my gran…my grandad had taken ill”
At her words, the other three exchanged glances and Lauren winced, “Did he turn into…”
“One of them?” Bella glanced up to hold her gaze, nodding as she spoke, “Yeah…this morning…then my gran turned as well…”
“Oh, you poor thing” Doctor Green shook his head at her, “You have my condolences”
Bella nodded, forcing a weak smile, “Thanks Doc, we have all lost people close to us though”
He winced, head shaking, “Not me, I have no-one”
The three women exchanged glances at his words, and Lauren nodded in what she thought was understanding, “Did you lose them in the first two waves of the virus?”
“What?” he raised an eyebrow, then gave a soft chuckle, his head shaking, “No, nothing so tragic, I have just never met the right person…I think that perhaps I have left things a little too late”
Again the three women exchanged glances, Alice and Bella raising their cups to their mouths, and Lauren cast her gaze about the large kitchen in which the four of them were sitting comfortably, as if the world hadn’t just turned to shit outside.
She had unlocked the ambulance rear from the inside as she had heard the three knocks from outside, just as the man named Dog had told her, only to find a pale faced Alice standing there instead. As Bella had appeared beside the woman in the leather jacket, the group had begun to disembark, following the silver-haired woman’s insistence that they hurry to the farmhouse.
And so leading a nervous Brandon by the hand, they had hurried through the dark to the building, the nurse smiling awkwardly at the rotund blonde woman that had stood beside the open doorway, beckoning them inside her home.
she had gasped in concern as she had entered the living room of the property to find the familiar figure of Victor laid upon the floor, a blanket over him, and a broad-shouldered, red-faced man sat on an armchair nearby, urging them to enter and find somewhere to sit or stand.
She had found out moments later, once everyone was safe inside the building, and the door had been locked, that the couple were indeed the owners of the property, Robert and Valerie Naughton, sheep farmers and local landowners.
They had awoken early that morning as usual, and Robert had been heading out to check their sheep with their two local farmhands, Roger and Terry, only for the latter to suddenly fall ill, his hair falling from his body and head, and his skin appearing to thicken and crack, becoming hard.
Lauren, like some of the others, had seen the process happen first hand but hearing someone else describe it sent her stomach knotting and she felt a heady wave of nausea wash over her.
Somehow, she had managed to hold it together, listening intently as the couple had explained how Robert, already suffering from a badly dislocated right knee cap in an accident several weeks before, had been attacked by the newly transformed Terry, and managed to escape back inside the house, only for Roger to also change.
They had spent the rest of the day in hiding, their blackout curtains drawn across the windows, the lights off and only candles giving illumination, and Robert had loaded the farms two shotguns ready to defend themselves while his wife had tried unsuccessfully to contact the local police.
Finally, as the thing that had been Roger had begun to hammer upon the front door, Robert had pushed one of the shotguns through the letterbox and given him one barrel, the force throwing th
e enraged former farmhand away from the door but apparently doing no harm.
“Guns don’t work on them?” Marcus had shaken his head at that point, glancing at everyone in the room, his voice almost hysterical, “What do we do if guns don’t work…we’re screwed!”
“They do work” Bella had grimaced from where she had been seated upon a long sofa beside Alice and the two children, the border collie held protectively in her arms as she had fixed the porter with an angry stare, “They throw them back…they might not kill them but you can still protect yourself to some degree with them”
“Oh great” the young man had given her a look of mock gratitude, clapping slowly, “Awesome”
“There are other ways to hurt them” Alice had spoken up, wincing as everyone had turned to look at her, “Their eyes can be hurt, if you can blind them it stands to reason you have a chance to escape…Jiyaa used a knife to do that back at the hospital, and Valerie here just blinded another with a pan of boiling water…also I believe Dog drowned one…and he’s also just electrocuted one through the eyes outside…they can be killed…it’s just not easy to do”
Bella had clicked her fingers, then as if suddenly remembering something, “Dog seems to think that if you stand completely still they cant see you for some reason…he and his friend did it to escape some in some woods near my home”
“Stand still?” Marcus had given a sneer, “OK”
“It’s true” Lauren had confirmed, the eyes of everyone shifting to study her as she had given a nod, “Back at the hospital, myself, Brandon and a very brave old lady named Mary had been trapped in the kitchen by a group of ghouls, we froze on the spot…I thought that they were going to kill us but then they seemed to look through us as if we weren’t there, and walked away”
time had seemed to stand still as everyone had stared at her, looks of surprise upon the faces of them all except for a cynical Marcus and an unconscious Dog, and then Valerie had risen to her feet from where she had been perched upon the arm of her husbands armchair, “Right, I will sort out somewhere for you all to sleep…there are plenty of blankets to go round, I might need some help though”
Ghoul: The Beginning Page 18