Hellspawn (Book 7): Hellspawn Aftermath

by Fleet, Ricky

  “Let’s move!” DB ordered.

  Securing their belongings, they moved to the side of the rusted train track and pursued the sprinting giant towards Pulborough town. The steel lines stretched on, bending around a corner towards a bridge.

  “Mind your step!” called DB without breaking stride. He danced expertly from support to support, missing the gaps completely. One false step, combined with the impetus, would likely snap his leg like a twig. Jonesy and the boys were more cautious, hopping carefully between the thick ties.

  As they all reached the other side, DB came to a sudden halt and held up a hand. They dropped to their knees while he checked ahead through the rifle scope. The station was totally deserted. Considering the raging chaos in the near vicinity it was to be expected. Undead from miles around would be drawn to the noise so they had to move fast. Bypassing the empty platforms ahead, they dodged over the flattened railway chain-link directly into the station car park. Jonesy traced the well-trodden path of the horde back along its route to the west. The crushed foliage and footprints stretching across the field to the woods beyond indicated a sizeable force.

  “They’ve only come through recently,” noted Braiden. Insects writhed sluggishly on the ground, perishing after falling from their rancid, fleshy home.

  “How can they survive in the zombies?” asked Sam, grimacing.

  “Ask the scientists if we ever find any,” replied DB, dismissing the question. “I don’t like the look of this one bit.”

  “When’s there ever been anything to like about this shit?” asked Jonesy.

  “I’m talking about the numbers. This is only from one direction,” DB explained, indicating the fresh, grave rot smears marring every vehicle panel and window in the area like some crazed abstract art.

  Jonesy sighed in frustration. “You think we might be out of our depth?”

  “We’ve got a couple of hundred rounds and the Three Musketeers. What do you think?”

  Jonesy looked at his friend, to the gore coated boys, then back to DB. “I think the zombies are the ones in the shit.”

  “You better believe it,” said Winston, hefting his axe.

  Sam and Braiden let the glint of the morning sun on their blades do the talking.

  “This isn’t the time for bullshit heroics! People are dying nearby. They’re dying bad. If I get a sniff that we’re outgunned, I’m pulling the plug. Understood?”

  Braiden mumbled something under his breath.

  “Bray, I’m serious! I know how bad you want this, but you’re not just taking on a rag tag group of leftovers inside a house. This is a fucking horde!”

  Jonesy agreed. “You can hear by the moans, mate. They’re louder than the… the other sounds.”

  “You mean screams,” finished Sam. It was true. The combined audible strength of the undead was drowning out the living. As each life was snuffed out nearby, the balance shifted ever further in favour of the dead.

  Braiden wasn’t dissuaded. The old look was back; face lowered, cheeks flushed, teeth clenched. “We have to try.”

  “We’re wasting time,” finished Sam, standing shoulder to shoulder with his brother.

  “We’ve got our first customers,” DB growled. Slipping the mask down over his face, he withdrew the spiked mace from his belt. “I’ve got these. Recce round the corner while I’m busy.”

  Jonesy stared hard at the boys. “You stay on my arse, just like when we scouted the prison, got it?”

  The three teenagers nodded. Despite the bravado, they were well aware that this was a deadly situation. One mistake could see them walking back to the castle as a drooling ghoul.

  Staying low, they slipped between the cars and ducked behind a garden wall. Jonesy scanned ahead, while Winston risked a glance back. Just in time to see the spiked weapon bury itself in a female zombie’s cranium. Both eyes popped from the sockets, forced out by the expulsion of the mashed brain. Wrenching it free with a helping boot to her chest, DB caught sight of them and followed.

  “Whatever’s happening, it’s around that corner,” Jonesy whispered.

  A small group of undead were shuffling towards the fighting, showing the way. Some were naked. Some were fully clothed. More were missing garments that had been torn loose during their deaths. All bore the same grey and yellow tinge to whatever skin remained. The same jellied slime of decomposition glistened in the rising sun, reminding the group of common garden slugs. The similarity to the unshelled molluscs ended there. Slugs weren’t hollowed out husks, bereft of juicy organs. They weren’t missing faces, limbs, and skin. Or hefty chunks. Or, in some cases, most of the body’s meat and muscle, leaving a wetly rattling skeleton.

  Joining them at the brick wall, DB crouched down, awaiting further instruction. Jonesy raised a flat palm and chopped it forward. Breaking cover, the five moved in a line to the opposite building and hugged the concrete render. The ravaged stragglers either missed their surreptitious movement, or ignored them in favour of the shrieking meal on offer nearby. Motioning towards the broken door of the home which covered their movements, they filed inside. They quickly cleared the ground floor, finding nothing except for a toddler chair covered with brown crust. Ignoring the heart-breaking discovery lest it rob them of resolve, they moved upstairs, finding nothing. Gathering in one of the rear bedrooms, they kept out of sight.

  Jonesy stood with his back to one of the walls, an empty white cot to his left. The pink paint and general décor indicated a girl. Pictures of a beaming baby with a mess of red curls confirmed it beyond all doubt. Cursing whichever fucked up deity that would allow the innocents to become such easy prey for the dead, he had to put it out of his mind. Like any war, civilian casualties were guaranteed. Squeezing his eyes shut, the fate of the poor child was locked away inside a secret compartment in his mind. It was the only way he could cope with the horrors of the pre and post-apocalyptic world. Opening them, the four looked on without judgement, only anticipation. Snatching a glimpse around the curtain for a split second, Jonesy saw everything. The road opened up to a large traffic light junction. One of the branches led to a housing estate similar to the one he grew up in. Set in a square, the four rows would face inwards to a green with small play area. What had been designed to foster community spirit among the inhabitants, had also provided a neat little enclave. Up until now. Every outer window and doorway was boarded with heavy ply. The sturdy material bore the hallmarks of a protracted siege; claw marks gouging the wood, congealed green blood, almost black from the length of time, coating the surfaces.

  “Shit,” Jonesy muttered, waving them over.

  They kept well back in the shadows, but could see what was unfolding.

  “They sealed the houses with a bus?”

  “Two buses,” Winston added.

  The road across the way was blocked by a pair of coaches tipped on their sides. The undercarriage was a solid mix of axles and plating that kept the undead at bay. From their angle they could make out the interior of the closest vehicle was packed with heavy appliances, rubble, and mud. A line of cars stretched into the estate, bumper to bumper, providing an extra brace to the fortification.

  “It’s kind of like the HESCO walls we had in Afghanistan.”

  “HESCO?” asked Sam.

  “They’re rapid deploy wire mesh and fabric wall sections. A truck drops them in a row and we filled them with soil and sand,” replied Jonesy. “The only difference here is they’ve done it with fifty seater coaches.”

  Hundreds of cadavers pushed and beat against the blockade, to no avail. The weight was enough to keep them out.

  DB was looking around, puzzled. “How are the zombies inside, though? There’s no breach here.”

  A haphazard wooden structure had been built atop the defences to provide a higher barrier and a vantage point for observation. One side of the frame was burning fiercely, but the source of the blaze was a mystery. Between the gathered corpses they could see the flat bottomed fuel tanks of the buses were intact
and unburnt.

  “Fucked if I know. There’re bigger fires over the other side, we need to move position and see where they’re getting in.”

  Sam, Braiden, and Winston moved towards the stairs until Jonesy stopped them.

  “Boys!”

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s going to be thousands of them.”

  “So?” Braiden muttered. He knew what was coming.

  “I’m just saying; be prepared. We may need to fall back like our arses are on fire.”

  “With, or without them,” DB added for clarity.

  It was a bitter pill to swallow, but Braiden slowly nodded. He would’ve given anything to reunite a daughter with her loving parents, a situation that would never occur in his own life. Perhaps it wasn’t to be.

  “You’re a good lad, Bray,” said Jonesy, patting him on the back. “Let’s get moving.”

  Chapter 16

  “There it is,” said DB. “We’ve found our breach.”

  “We’re not getting through that lot,” Jonesy replied.

  A convenience store with the name Patel’s was a smoking shell. The inside of the shop was still burning in places, but the conflagration that had gutted it was over. The flat above was another matter. Flames roared from the shattered windows, while plumes of black smoke poured through collapsed sections of the roof structure.

  “It’ll all come down soon. You can see the brickwork’s already sagging from the heat,” said DB, noting the widening cracks.

  “What the fuck’s happened here?” Jonesy spat, his own frustration boiling over.

  A dozen sheets of reinforced ply were neatly stacked against the wall to the side of the storefront.

  “If I were to guess, someone’s taken them down in the night and then lit the fire to stop the people from trying to seal it again.”

  “But who? And how? And why, for fuck’s sake?”

  “The prison?”

  “Surely this is too far for them?”

  “Another group then?” Jonesy’s words were laced with dread. It was hard enough to contend with two factions of lunatics. If other bands existed who would use such calculated premeditation to murder a fellow group of survivors, humanity was truly fucked.

  “It doesn’t matter right now. What we need is a plan.”

  “First things first, we need to see if there’s another way in. There’s God knows how many down there,” Jonesy said, pointing at the crowd.

  Winston tried a quick headcount. “Close to a thousand I’d say.”

  “With more coming,” said Sam, pointing down the street at the newcomers.

  “And we’re not getting over the coaches, either. The whole platform is probably on fire by now.”

  “I might have an idea,” said Braiden.

  “Let’s have it, mate.”

  “This is just like our estate in Emsworth, there’ll be alleys and other roads. We just need to keep looking for an easier way in.”

  “Ok, let’s do it. Time’s running out and we’re going to be fighting as we go.”

  “Everyone check your masks and armour. I don’t want any fuckups,” said DB.

  A quick check was carried out to the soldier’s satisfaction. Bounding down the stairs, the five exited the house and headed away from the failing fortification. DB and Jonesy switched to the flanks, while the teenagers held the centre. Moving down the road between abandoned cars and empty pavements, they all felt the loneliness closing in. None of them had been here, but it resembled a normal town found up and down the country. Bustling shoppers jostling for position. Irate drivers trying to do the same on the packed roads. The only travellers on the ghost roads now were the dead. Their only goal, to feed.

  “Heads up,” Jonesy warned as a sizeable group appeared. The newly summoned undead were massing.

  The warriors all moved apart to give each other space. Winston lunged forward, slashing down with the axe. Using a restraining hand to pull the blow on the long handle, the heavy blade only cut through to the sternum, separating the man’s head. As the creature slopped to the ground, Winston noticed the familiar McDonald’s uniform.

  “Mmmmm, Big Mac,” he drooled.

  “What?” DB spat, sideswiping a woman with the mace. Skull caving in, the power of the blow nearly took her head clean off. The deep bite marks on the side of her neck tore, causing the crushed skull to flop onto her shoulder.

  “Just reminiscing,” replied the teenager, his tummy grumbling at the memory of the sauce.

  “Don’t reminisce. Kill!” snapped Braiden. Expertly darting around his prey, he lanced through the temple. All unlife fled the zombie as it dropped, the neat puncture oozing black matter.

  Sam was keeping his distance, hacking with the long bladed machete without putting himself in reach of the dead. Foreheads split open like cracked eggs, expelling the riven grey contents onto the ground.

  “Mind your step!” warned DB, mostly to himself as he came close to slipping over on a patch of gore.

  Winston started merrily humming a tune. Fully warmed up, he struck the next zombie with a devastating upswing. The axe separated the rib cage, cleaved the chin, before leaving through the top of its head and lifting the monster a foot off the ground. Something in his shoulder flared in pain from the awkward angle of the stroke. Promising the pained muscle to keep it simple in the future, he moved on to the next corpse.

  “More to the left!” Jonesy called.

  A quartet of school children in matching green blazers headed the pack. The plastic bags used to suffocate themselves were still wrapped tightly around their heads, shrouding the faces in polyurethane camouflage. Four blackened tongues probed against the plastic, the weight of spilling drool pooling in the bag at the neck, pulling the covering tight.

  “Fuck, that’s disgusting,” muttered Sam.

  “At least they haven’t been eaten,” responded Braiden, shrugging. “That could’ve been us if Miss Blume hadn’t saved us.”

  “But suffocation?” Sam groaned. It hit too close to home after the outbreak involving Jasmine.

  “They must’ve been trapped and used what they could. I’d rather that than be a dead fuck’s next meal.”

  “I guess.”

  Winston was equally appalled by the inhumanity that forced the youngsters into such a drastic action. Swinging wide, he knocked all four down with one strike. The soldiers finished off the hooded monstrosities, putting them out of their misery.

  Sam smiled gratefully, though it looked more like a grimace. Braiden joined him and stabbed and slashed until another six were killed. Taking a step back, Jonesy, Winston, and DB stepped in to let them catch a breath. Most of those remaining were crawlers; zombies so damaged they could only drag themselves across the unforgiving ground. Winston buried the battle axe in the nearest creature’s head, nearly crippling himself in the process from the jarring impact. Letting out a cry of pain, the weapon clattered to the road. Shaking his hands, he tried to flex the numb, tingling fingers. Braiden retrieved the axe for him and moved back behind the soldiers who were trying not to laugh.

  “Dumbass,” he said, shaking his head.

  “I think I might’ve been a bit overzealous,” Winston replied, wincing.

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  “Ok, leave the others,” Jonesy ordered. None were capable of doing much pursuing, only leaving bits of themselves behind.

  “We’ve seen the south and west of the estate, that leaves two more roads to check,” Braiden explained.

  DB took the lead as they neared the junction. Peeking around the back of a milk truck, Braiden’s information was on the money. Twenty four homes stretched away, broken into terraces of six. The back yards were, conversely, on the main road, while the frontages opened up onto the unreachable green beyond. Low brick walls encircled each home’s postage stamp sized patch of garden. Once filled with flowers, grass, or in some cases discarded appliances and furniture, they now held the dead.

  “There’s hardly any of
them,” DB said over his shoulder. “I say we run past and ignore them. Is everyone ready?”

  Four confirmations came and he left cover. Jogging down the street between the vehicles, the zombies saw the movement and gave chase.

  “There’s the first alley!” called Braiden.

  “It’s blocked solid all the way to the roof. No way through!”

  Rising six feet in the small opening was a concrete block wall. The cement joints were uneven and sloppy, evidence of the hasty erection. More debris was piled and stacked behind to give an impassable barrier.

  “They’ve got a builder in there by the look of it!” remarked Jonesy.

  “I wonder if they can build more castles?” asked Winston.

  They continued on, ignoring the question. A small group of undead were converging in their wake, still in numbers too low to be a threat. Each of the other two alleys were blocked in the same fashion. At the third, several cadavers were knelt down in a circle. The tearing sounds meant one thing; food. Whoever it was had climbed the blockade and chanced the fall. Fifteen feet and panic assured failure. One of the dead held a coil of intestines aloft like a prize, before tearing at the flimsy tube with eager teeth. Staring at the group, he slowly chewed, weighing up whether to give chase. The warm banquet proved to be the easier meal and he tore another length from the digestive tract.

  “It’s not one of them,” declared Braiden.

  “No way!” agreed Sam, eternally optimistic.

  Braiden knew he was only being supportive and loved him for it. He didn’t explain that he’d caught a glimpse of the victim’s face. The silent, screaming mouth seared onto his memory. The missing eye. They were too young to be either Gail or Don.

  “That’s where they got all the gear!” said DB, pointing ahead.

  A Travis Perkins builder’s centre lay a hundred yards away down the next road. Like Hansel and Gretel, a trail of materials marked the route the scavengers took in claiming the goods. Split bags of sand. A stray block here and there. Boxes of spilled screws. Spars of milled lumber. Littered amongst the inert were truly dead corpses, their heads split open.