Spinning her head faster than he had ever seen her move, she whipped around to face him, apparently having forgotten all about the dog she had been tearing apart with her teeth and her nails.
Unfreezing from the spot as rapidly as he had become stuck there in the first place, Peter turned and fled. Skidding on the kitchen linoleum as his right foot was wet with urine, he slammed into the floor to scramble upright and fly towards the back door, where he snatched up his backpack without breaking step. Spilling from the door, he slammed it behind him just in time, as she was pressed against the pane of glass as though she were trying to chew her way through it. Standing there, just inches from the woman who had enjoyed hurting him every day of his life that he could recall, he felt no change in his attitude towards her, even now that she seemed to be a wild animal and a murderer. Backing away as he slipped his arms into the straps of his bag, his left foot bumped the outstretched hand of the dead fat man and made him stumble but not fall. Turning away, he made straight for the gap in the trees, and vanished into the gathering dark.
FOURTEEN
Peter shivered through the night, partly because of the chill air cooling the wet trouser leg he’d had to endure, but mostly through shock and fear. He had found himself somewhere high and relatively sheltered to spend the night in the upper floor of the barn, but that was still fairly exposed to the gentle wind that blew between the prefabricated panels, and it had forced him to stack some hay bales to provide a wind break.
He had fled wearing only a thin sweatshirt, but finding a thick, black coat of heavy, close-knit wool had been heavenly. Wrapped up inside the stiff, oversized garment which his father had called a donkey jacket, he settled down and tried to find sleep.
But sleep would not come, and every time he closed his eyes to turn the murky grey of the moonlit night into the black behind his eyelids, the scene of the dog torn to pieces and his mother ripping and chewing at it flashed vividly in his mind’s eye. He replayed the scene from colourful memory over and over like a short film stuck on loop, and it seemed to him that every time he saw it, he was drawn into his mother’s cloudy eyes deeper and deeper, until he felt as though she had pulled him close enough for her bloodstained teeth to bite down on his thin arm and tear out a chunk of flesh, just as had happened to her.
He had never seen a zombie film. Never read a book about the dead reanimating or seen comics or anything like it. The word itself – zombie – was barely ever used, because its relevance in normal society was unrecognised in most places. All he knew, and with a child’s perspective that made the facts all the more intense, was that his mother had been bitten by a person, then she had burned a fever, then she had woken up and torn the dog to pieces and eaten it. She would have eaten him, too, but he had got away.
Trying to work it through logically, he relayed the facts of the last few days over and over until it no longer made a semblance of sense, but instead confused him worse than before he had started trying to understand. Telling himself to keep to the facts, he laid out the world as he now knew it.
He was on his own.
People bit other people, then they got whatever it was.
People who had been bitten tried to eat you.
One other fact left off his list tickled at the very fringe of being an idea. As he concentrated more, shutting out the wind and the cold and the fear, he connected the dots.
When they are Biters, he thought, making up the name on the spot, given their most prevalent behaviour, they die if you stab them in the head.
That thought stayed with him more than the other facts as he drifted in and out of restless slumber throughout the rest of the night.
When he woke, the sky was still the steely-grey pre-dawn with just the slightest of hints of a horizontal slice of yellowy orange in the distance. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep any longer, and he decided that he had enough light to return home and do what he knew had to be done. Climbing down and sitting at a hay bale at ground level as he ate Nik Naks and a Mars bar for breakfast, he left the heavy jacket over his backpack of goodies and straightened his resolve as he aimed for his house.
Finding the scene at the back door unchanged, barring the absence of his mother gnawing at the glass and squashing her face to smear frothing blood over the single pane, he took three deep breaths as he maintained an awareness of his surroundings. Three people, no three Biters, had wandered up to their house, and they lived in the middle of nowhere, so there was no way to be certain that he was safe just because there weren’t usually any people around. He cleared his throat for the purpose of clearing his throat, and not to gain anyone’s attention, and reached out for the pitchfork which still stood almost upright as it was buried in the unmoving skull where it had been so forcefully placed.
Tugging with both hands to free it, he staggered backwards as it came loose in some grotesque parody of the animated film that he had watched so many times with his sister. It had been one of the only VHS cassettes specifically for them in the house, so their choice of things to watch when they were left alone was limited. Still, he imagined himself becoming the king of all the land when the old pitchfork came free, and he held it aloft just as he had seen the character do in the film.
Nothing happened. No ray of light burst from the heavens to shine down on him and no music blasted from unseen speakers to announce his presence to the world.
Instead, a loud noise startled him as his mother banged her face into the glass again to try and chew her way out to kill him, smearing the pane with dark gore. Lowering the pitchfork and spinning the wooden handle in both hands in physical preparation for the act that he had mentally practised throughout the night, he rolled his shoulders and, for the first time in his life, got ready to stand up for himself against his mother.
Stepping forwards and snatching down the back door handle, he stepped smartly back as she screeched loudly, as if they were both psyching themselves up for the confrontation. Then she spilled out of the doorway and fell headfirst down the raised step, to slap noisily on her front at his feet. Stepping backwards slowly as though magnetised into keeping a certain distance, like he was physically repelled by her, he watched her halting, inhuman movements. She moved her arms, one by one, slowly as though her short fall had dazed her, then raised her head and reached out to him with one hand as she hissed inwards with an accompanying groan. The dried blood of her last meal was dark and crusted as it flaked off her face and hands.
Peter stepped back with one foot to steady himself, raised the pitchfork with both hands and angled the curved metal tines as best he could estimate, then struck as he stamped his left foot forward and buried a single spike through her eye socket to grate the end sickeningly against the inside of her skull. She froze, twitched three times with lessening intensity, then slumped forwards as he withdrew the metal.
Looking down at the now lifeless form that used to be his mother, Peter spoke softly.
“That was for nothing,” he said, with resounding finality and not a single trace of remorse, “and there’s plenty more where that came from.”
“Right, you tossers!” Squadron Sergeant Major Johnson bawled as he strode into the room where the majority of his troopers were sleeping. “Hands off cocks and grab socks.”
He had roused them just before dawn, having woken over an hour before to shave and dress in his uniform. He wasn’t just the man in charge of the squadron, he was also its heart and soul. Its mascot and talisman.
The RMP unit had volunteered to take the night duty, which Johnson had readily agreed to, but insisted that Three Troop remain on standby to act as the quick reaction force should the RMPs meet any threat that could not be avoided or easily tackled by their reduced numbers.
Following the incident which had threatened to rob him of his wits, not to mention control of his suddenly liquid bowels, he had issued standing orders to the entire squadron, which had apparently now absorbed the eight red caps left behind as the detritus of an unexpected conf
lict. Those orders were based on the few pieces of valuable information he had gleaned during his brief period of intimacy with one of the things.
The Screechers, as he had called them because of the most penetrative sound the thing had made, a noise that had stayed buried deep in his mind, did not die through conventional means. He had proven that with the half a dozen bullets he had stitched through the chest of the thing at very close range.
Headshots, he had warned, or a bayonet to the brain preferably, given their very highly attuned aural acuity. A hand had gone up at that point.
“Yes,” he said in a tired tone that already bordered dangerously on annoyance, “Trooper Nevin?”
“Sir, what’s aural acuity mean?” asked Paul Nevin, a man of sufficient age and with enough service to have been a full corporal at least, but in possession of a perpetual laziness and poor attitude.
“It means, Trooper,” Johnson said in a tone riddled with warning, “that the things do hear very good and probably better than what you do…” he trailed off after delivering the offensive retort in a voice that told everyone listening precisely what he thought about the mental capacity of Trooper Nevin. His biggest challenge was reading the Sun’s page three; that was when he could look beyond Samantha Fox to see the words. Johnson’s stare lingered for a few more uncomfortable seconds on the man who he was certain had interrupted him for the sake of having an audience, as opposed to genuinely not knowing the correct terminology for sharp hearing. Uncomfortable seconds for Nevin at least, before he resumed his briefing.
Headshots, or bayonets if they could keep it quiet, were the order of business. Strict discipline regarding noise was to be enforced, and all NCOs were directly responsible for maintaining that discipline.
“As for today,” Johnson went on in his loud, powerful voice, “Two and Three troops will remain here with Admin troop under the command of the SQMS. Our RMP brethren will be standing down for the daytime after the rest of us leave. One Troop and Assault will be on patrol with me.” He looked at his watch, “Oh-seven-hundred we are off, so be ready, and one last thing…” he said loudly as he glowered at the assembled men, “We will not observe the normal practice involving RMPs on gate sentry and eggs. Am I clear?”
Mumbles of an affirmative nature and downward-cast eyes gave him as much answer as he would get without singling any one man out, but he had made his point.
“And me, Mister Johnson? Where might I best serve the squadron?” asked a nasal voice which was quickly followed by what Johnson could only describe as a smell like a tart’s handbag. He turned to see a splendidly uniformed, and sickeningly perfumed, Second Lieutenant Palmer, who had clearly taken his combat uniform to the family tailor in order to achieve the best fit. Johnson’s trained eye, however, noted the well-maintained weapon and a healthy supply of additional ammunition.
“Lieutenant Palmer,” Johnson said, “you will be in the second Sultan behind me.”
Palmer nodded with a hand pressed flat on his chest in an almost mocking gesture of obedience, before he straightened and slipped a thin cigarette into his mouth and lit it as he turned away.
“Where I can keep a fucking eye on you, you bloody dimwit,” Johnson added quietly to himself.
Thirty-nine minutes later, with assault troop leading the way with four Spartans in the front, two Sultans in the middle and the un-tracked four-wheeled Fox armoured cars of One Troop behind, Johnson led his small fighting unit out into the picturesque countryside.
They had travelled less than two miles before they met oncoming vehicles, each containing family members with all their belongings and pets. Each one was flagged down by the leading vehicle and directed straight to the gate, where they were told to be ready to be searched and relieved of any weapons.
Johnson, from his elevated perspective, standing tall out of the open hatch of the armoured vehicle, fancied that these early morning arrivals were the more sensible ones; those who had taken the night to pack and ensure that they had everything they needed. The influx had been steady, and the other senior sergeants had done a good job in telling them how things were, and thus keeping their problems from becoming Johnson’s problems.
Now, approaching the nearest town, the full extent of their problems was about to become clear.
Peter couldn’t stay in that house. The only home he had ever lived in no longer felt like a safe place, nor did he feel any positive emotional attachment to the building. It stank of death, for one thing. The rotting, butcher’s shop stench was thick and cloying in his throat, and he couldn’t bear to look at the ravaged remains of the dog that had so overtly disliked him. To Peter, it had still been an innocent animal which had been physically ripped apart and died horribly. He stripped his clothes and washed with cold water as there was no hot left now that nobody was alive to flick the switch and activate the immersion heater controls. Cold water didn’t bother him, as his discomfort at feeling cold seemed to have vanished during that long night he had spent in the windy barn. He seemed to have aged overnight, matured by the indescribably savage turn of events over the last week.
He had lost his sister, his shield against the harsh realities of his parents’ lives.
He had lost his father soon afterwards, not that he knew what his fate had been, but he doubted he would have chosen not to come back; he had left his gun and his dog behind, and Peter thought he would value those two things more than his wife or son.
He had lost his mother. Well, he had killed her but that didn’t seem to count as a crime because she had already killed three other people and then turned into the same as them, before killing the dog.
And besides, he told himself as though he needed any more justification, I had to kill her because she was going to eat me, like she did the dog.
He did wonder how difficult that final rebellious act would have been, had he actually enjoyed his life or felt any connection other than mutual hatred for the woman who abused him, but he put that thought aside as an irrelevant one. As young as he was, as inexperienced in life as he felt, he accepted this new reality on a deep level that could not be explained.
This, his subconscious told him, was just how life was now.
Selecting clothes, food and other supplies, he carried his heavy load downstairs and paused by the lounge door. He didn’t cast his eyes left because he doubted he could hold his nerve if he saw the ravaged and destroyed body of the dog, so instead he reached out and felt for the door handle as he tried not to breathe in the smell of death. As the door clicked shut, his eyes rested on the hallway cupboard, and he quickly weighed up the risks of doing what he was planning on doing and decided that there was nobody left to punish him. Opening the door and reaching inside, he picked up the heavy shotgun with its long barrels and stooped awkwardly to retrieve the belt, complete with its fully stuffed loops, each one bearing a red plastic tube with a brass cap. Hefting the gun and leaning to one side to lift the cartridge belt over his shoulder, he walked to the kitchen where he put everything down and emptied the cupboard of the food.
Quickly realising that he had more than he could carry, he furrowed his brow in thought for a few seconds before an idea struck him. Turning for the back door and lifting up the pitchfork which would now go with him everywhere, he slipped outside with alert eyes and returned shortly afterwards pulling a four-wheeled cart with a squeaking wheel bearing. Taking it past the house and down the few steps with difficulty, as he had to manoeuvre around the four dead bodies, he kept his eyes fixed on anything except the corpses. He took a selection of tools from the shed and added them to the cart, then manhandled it with much more exertion back to the house, where he ferried his bags of clothes and food out to fill the only transport he had available to him.
Turning his back on the house after he closed the back door, he paused, glancing for the first time at the decaying bodies, and feeling the swell of fear rising from his churning stomach again. He considered whether to set fire to the house and destroy the evidence of hi
s childhood and its bloody end, but deciding against the arson, no matter how satisfying it would have been, he dropped the final item onto the top of his haul.
Settling the stuffed lamb in the top of his battered backpack to make it more comfortable, he tightened the zip to keep it safe, and headed for the farm.
FIFTEEN
“Stop, stop, stop,” Johnson’s radio operator called to the armoured column after his hand gesture indicated his orders.
“Signal Assault troop,” he shouted to the trooper on the radio, “half of them are to dismount and recce the obstruction. Defile drill.”
The man nodded and relayed the orders. Johnson watched as two of the crew dismounted from their tracked wagons, wearing webbing and helmets and carrying their personal weapons. Then they set off forward on foot with the heavy machine guns of the other two serving as cover. If he had ordered the entire troop to dismount, they would have removed the GPMGs, the 7.62mm general purpose machine guns, from their tracked vehicles and taken them along to provide a devastating capability of man-portable weaponry. But Johnson wanted this done quickly, and he wanted his boys back inside the safety of their armoured vehicles as fast as humanly possible.
He was yet to see a set of teeth that could bite through the thick aluminium of their wagons.
Despite his crisp appearance, he had barely slept during the night as he had pored over all the details he knew, as well as those he was making educated guesses about. One thing that he couldn’t yet be sure about was how the, whatever it was, infected people. How the dead arose and started acting like the one he had spent quality time with at the fence.
The only way, he decided, was when they bit someone. Just like rabies.
Switching his attention back to the scene ahead, he took a deep breath and watched his boys work. He knew they knew what to do and certainly didn’t need him watching over them or holding their hands. As much as he wanted to be at the tip of the spear, he recognised that the need for oversight was more important to the squadron than having their oldest, albeit probably toughest, soldier at the front. And he knew it would serve little purpose other than to assuage his feelings of itchy feet.
Toy Soldiers Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 11