From Despair to Where

by Oliver Smith

  Clambering over the garden wall, Claudia didn’t have a plan; she was moving in a blind frenzy. She had sat through the training that every member of the community was expected to attend, how to fight, escape routes through the village, but she’d taken these classes for granted, sitting and daydreaming throughout. Turning a corner, an alley ran between two stone cottages and she headed down the narrow passage. Picking up the pace, she ran into the open and was immediately surrounded. Claudia screamed.

  Claudia’s scream ensured that the entire village was awake. The terrified scream adding urgency to those that watched on, bringing them out of the safety of their houses to help their neighbours; the strength of the community was now a weakness in danger of killing it.

  -

  Jack and Lucy had seen enough, they were trying to figure out what to do, “We need to get out there, we have to fight, there’s no other way.” Lucy said staring intently at Jack.

  He nodded, “We need to raise the rest of the security guys, army included.”

  They moved into Chloe’s room; she was still sleeping. Gently shaking the girl, Jack help up his finger to shush her as she woke up startled, looking concerned.

  Whispering, Lucy said, “Chloe, honey, we’ve got a problem. There are lots of monsters outside, but you’re safe in here. I want you to get under your bed and stay there. Don’t make a noise, even if someone walks into the room. We’ll come back for you, only answer to our voices. Do you understand?” The intensity in Lucy’s tone caused as much reaction from Chloe as her words, the little girl nodded, sat up and wearily hugged both Jack and Lucy.

  She got off the bed and crawled under it, clutching a teddy. Bending down, Jack whispered, “We love you and we’ll come back for you. Do as Lucy said, we’ll see you soon.”

  They left via the back door; pump action shotguns holstered on their backs. Precision shooting wasn’t needed, she chose the weapon that would make the biggest impact. After trying to raise James and Scott, they moved on to Dave’s house and found him running towards them with a couple of soldiers, who had moved into the village with their families.

  Dave was first to speak, “We’re in deep here. Scott and James have gone somewhere, I can’t find them. What do we do?”

  “We need to draw them away from the village. I heard a scream; people are getting hurt. You guys.” Lucy pointed to the soldiers, “There’s a tall wall at the end of the village by the fork in the road, can you two get on top of it and attract the dead, you can take them down one at a time from up there, do you have knives, they should be easy pickings?”

  Lucy was taking command to the relief of those that stood and listened. The soldiers nodded and also showed the army issued Glock 17 pistols that they’d smuggled from the barracks. The army was over, but the establishment rules still lingered as the Colonel had forbidden military weapons to be taken to the new homes of the troops that had moved into the village. His reasoning focused around potential integration issues and a lack of social boundaries; he didn’t want a village shooting to shatter the plans they were building. Unfortunately, he had taken the dead for granted and left the village short of firepower for a horde of this size.

  “Me and Jack will head to the road that forks left, Dave, find someone to help you and take the right-hand road.” Pointing back at the soldiers, Lucy continued, “Just draw the dead towards you, they’ll gather under the wall to try and get you. We’ll get in place down the two forks in the road and once we’re there, you guys split up and join the two of us to draw them out. We need their attention so they follow us. Do you understand?”

  There were nods all round.

  The group ran together in silence before splitting off in smaller packs. Dave went to try the houses of some of the security crew, the soldiers ran with seasoned fitness to the tall wall, being careful to remain hidden from the crowds of dead on the main road.

  Jack ran alongside Lucy, relieved to be doing something and happy to have the decisions made for him. Mostly he was grateful for being by Lucy’s side.

  -

  Claudia had run blindly into her front garden and straight into five of the dead who had fallen into the garden over the waste high wall. She skidded to a stop across the grass as the five creatures swung around sensing their opportunity, stumbling backwards, she tripped, falling on to the soft turf and screamed once more. Scrambling back, her palms gathering soil, she managed to spring to her feet and push one of the dead away as it lunged. The counter force of her push sent her into the grasp of a badly decomposed elderly woman. Claudia managed to wedge her hammer under its chin and push the creature’s jaw away from her, but she was in its embrace with the others closing in.

  The elderly corpse’s grip abruptly loosened as its body fell limply away. Claudia cleared the hair out of her eyes to see Gil; he was pushing the dead away. He turned and hurriedly shouted, “Get out to the back of the houses, remember the training, stick to the hidden routes and get out of the village. Get away from this crowd!”

  One of the dead lunged at the two of them and Gil pushed again, his fingers sinking into decomposed flesh; he had a knife, but waved it wildly, carving chunks of flesh away, but doing little to stop the unrelenting beasts.

  Claudia hesitated, as Gil shouted, “Go!”

  She fled to the back of the house.

  Another carcass launched at Gil, but he saw it from the corner of his eye and swung his arm around and pierced its skull forcing the blade deep, the creature fell, but the knife wedged and took Gil tumbling to the ground as he held his grasp of the knife. One of the dead sensed its opportunity and fell on Gil willingly. It bit his face, tearing his cheek, Gil found strength and pulled the knife from the skull it was lodged in and took down the creature chewing on his face, it fell on him as he felt himself being eaten alive by two others. He screamed and cried out in agony and thrashed wildly with his blade, he tore through throats, torsos and covered himself in a sea of red. He killed the remaining dead who were piled on his bleeding body, his face, torso, and arms were badly bitten, and he was losing blood quickly. Gil looked at the garden wall as more of the dead were in the process of falling over it. He was gone. Sitting silently, tingling from the loss of blood, he watched as two more of the dead fell clumsily onto the grass.

  Gil looked down at his knife. He didn’t want to be like them. He counted down; three, two, one.

  Gil breathed heavily; he couldn’t do it.

  Coward.

  Gil drove his knife powerfully under his chin, slicing through skin, cartilage, and muscle, finally resting in his brain. He fell to the side, in peace, as the dead devoured him.

  Chapter 47 - Futile

  The two soldiers scaled the wall Lucy described, leant over and started shouting at the top of their voices. The dead nearest took the bait and more were soon to follow. The wall was too high for the uncoordinated husks to climb and they soon gathered around underneath the soldiers, reaching up, desperately stretching their arms to reach the fresh meat. Continuing their shouts and whistles, the soldier’s training took over and they began fiercely piercing skulls with their razor-sharp blades, dropping them efficiently.

  Despite the soldier’s bravery, efficiency and deadly accuracy, the plan was failing. People had come out of their homes to take the fight to the dead and help those in trouble. They were in plain sight and were making large numbers of the dead stay right where they were. Lucy’s lure could not work whilst the community continued to fight in the open.

  Lucy and Jack, along with Dave and a young guy called Chris, were unaware of the situation unfolding in the village and moved to their positions ready to draw the dead away from the soldiers. They had seen the soldiers begin their part and waited in the wings for the dead to surround them. It was an infuriating wait as they watched, motionless, occasionally having to fight off small groups that came their way.

  It quickly became apparent to Lucy that the plan wasn’t working. The dead were moving towards the soldiers, but the pack had spli
t with the vast majority staying in the main part of the village. She was quick to understand the cause, she knew that the people had come out of their homes to try and take the fight to the dead.

  “Fuck!” Lucy exclaimed.

  Jack still catching his breath from butchering a nearby wanderer asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “They’re not following. People must have come out of their houses. We need to get them out of there or at least back inside, otherwise we have no hope of luring them away.” Lucy said briskly, knowing that if they didn’t get the horde moving every single member of the community would be doomed.

  “I’ll go and see what I can do. Stay here and be ready to start making a big noise! I’ll be back once I’ve managed to get people to go back inside. Stay safe.” Jack looked at Lucy and placed a hand on her face whilst gently kissing her.

  “Jack?”

  “Yes?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” She knew what she wanted to say.

  He ducked and ran behind the houses, looking for a safe vantage point to see what was going on.

  Lucy watched her surroundings alertly when she heard distant gun fire. Hearing a whistle and feeling the air move close to her, she took a step sideways. She heard another shot and her brain’s logic clicked into gear, realising that someone was shooting at her, just as the bullet struck. Lucy fell to the floor.

  -

  Jack ran around the back of the house with the tall wall at the front, where the soldiers shouted and killed. He bounded around the back of the large house and startled Dave and Chris as they raised their weapons and then relaxed upon recognising Jack.

  He explained to Dave and Chris that the crowd wasn’t moving, and it was likely that people were in the village fighting; making it impossible to lure the dead away. Dave told Chris to wait where he was, and joined Jack as they sped off to try and remedy the issues of good people doing good deeds.

  They came to the centre of the village and looked for a way to the main road. Climbing a fence, they found a side gate and passage to the front of a house facing James’ abode. Peering over the gate, they saw the crowds, most of the dead were in the road, but many had managed to get into gardens. They could see the Doctor out in his garden batting the dead away, he was taking them one at a time as they came over his dry-stone wall. The Doctor wasn’t in immediate danger, but down the road Jack could see Magda, she was also in her garden and was pushing the dead away with a broom. She was old and tiring rapidly, looking destined to succumb to the never-ending desire of the dead.

  Jack saw Magda and thought of Chloe and the affection the girl had for the old woman. He told Dave and that he was going to help Magda and that Dave should try and get the Doctor inside. Disappearing behind the houses again, Jack frantically tried to find a way to cross the main road to reach Magda. The woman had two orphan children living with her that she had taken in during the early stages of the outbreak. She had known the children all their lives and it seemed natural that Magda should assume responsibility and she did it with delight, the children igniting a force in her that had faded over a decade before. The dead had been breaking panes of glass in her house and she had told her children to hide in the attic, she should have done the same, but her motherly instinct forced her outside to fight for her adopted children’s futures.

  Jack turned the corner and saw a gap in the crowd. He didn’t stop to think, he ran with all his might, weaving around the grasps of the dead as he leapt onto and then over a garden wall. He jumped two walls of neighbouring houses and found himself in with Magda and the group of dead. He continued at pace and struck a former man, wearing just boxer shorts, its skin mottled yellow and grey, two more were lurching towards him and a couple more were being held by Magda and her broom. To buy himself time, Jack kicked the closest of the dead in the chest and sent it sprawling backwards, he noticed that more were falling over the wall and joining the pursuit, they didn’t have much time. He dealt with a former teenage girl, it was slim, but badly cut up and ripped apart; he marched towards it and smashed his hammer into the side of its skull.

  Magda’s strength was giving way, she now held the broom outstretched and was trapped between it and the door as she pushed in vain, her head tilted back to keep two chomping jaws from reaching her, only inches away as the tension in her muscles loosened with each breath.

  Jack jumped and kicked the first of the dead in the ribs from the side, it flew into its partner and they both tumbled to the floor, three more were bearing in. Turning to Magda he said, “We need to go, we’re trying to lure them out of the village, but you need to get inside and hide.”

  She was quick to understand, “My girls are in the attic, they’re safe, but I can’t stay here, they’ll get in.”

  “Come on, we need to go.” Jack pulled Magda by the hand and ran to the edge of the garden, they were slow, he tried to pull Magda along, but she was a 73-year-old woman and no longer built for speed. Jack picked her up and lifted her over the adjoining garden wall and placed her on her feet, jumping over himself and then leading her on. He batted a couple of the dead away with ineffective blows and lifted Magda over a second wall. They slowly ran around the corner leading to the back of the houses.

  Turning to Magda, Jack said, “Go to my house. Chloe is there, she’s under her bed. Wait with her there. Just please be careful and quiet getting in.”

  “Thank you, Jack.” Magda trotted away while Jack kept watch for her safe passage.

  It was time to get back to Dave, and then to Lucy.

  -

  Doctor Edward Green was a retired Doctor; he retired six months before the outbreak so was still well versed to take over the community’s medical needs. He was well known throughout the area due to two decades as General Practitioner, and because of his exotic choice of footwear, which caused great amusement to his patients. Because of his standing, he had seen a great deal of the disease early on, and had assumed the world was doomed long before it became evident that it was. He was called to houses of friends to check up on loved ones and was confused by the fever and injuries, the bites. He managed to survive these times by chance, he was never present when one of his ex-patients turned, which was just as well as he had no idea they would try to eat him.

  By the time he realised what was happening, the world was awash with the dead. The ex-patients and friends he had seen that were bitten were already doomed. He did conjure up the courage to check on a friend, and came across scenes of a massacre. Blood was everywhere and there were signs of an epic struggle, he wandered to the back of the house and saw his friend and their son stood in the garden, they were bedraggled and bloody. They sensed him, turned, and began to approach. Ed slid the patio door shut and walked out of the house. The dead eyes of his friend and her son irreversibly changed the Doctor.

  As the weeks and months unfolded Ed saw more and more of the infection. He lost people he knew; he had to pierce the brain of reanimated friends. As a Doctor with considerable experience, he had learned a long time ago how to cope with death, but this new infection had brought a whole new meaning to the word dead. Doctor Edward Green hated the dead.

  The dead had started to break into the Doctor’s house after seeing his wife Sue looking from the bedroom window at the commotion. Ed told Sue to stay in the bedroom and to lock the door. She didn’t argue with him, she saw the look on his face and knew not to attempt to dissuade him from his wants.

  He had sat and watched discretely as the dead started to approach the house. It took ten to 15 minutes for them to start banging at the windows and a few more minutes for the windows to break. He zipped up his leather jacket, picked up a kitchen knife and axe and headed for the front door. As the windows cracked, so did Ed’s fragile resistance to wreaking havoc upon the dead.

  Striding out of the door, kicking it shut as he left, he swung wildly with pure animal aggression and sliced, chopped, and battered the walking dead into submission. With the dead in his garden handled, he walked the walled bounda
ry hitting as he pleased, striking the axe into the heads of those trying to make their way over.

  Dave watched from the sides as the Doctor wildly killed the dead. He had a crowd of more than 200 concentrated around his property with more joining it, some were busy with the soldiers and with Magda’s battle, but the Doctor was getting more than his fair share of attention.

  Dave saw it happen; the front of the crowd toppled forwards onto each other in a great pile. The wall collapsed under the concentrated weight of so many bodies pushing, and the dead started streaming into the garden. Dave didn’t wait, he made a dash for it, ducking and weaving like a child playing tag. He made it to the far wall of a garden and jumped his body onto it. Kicking a couple of grasps from him, he rolled into the garden and scrambled on his hands and knees to his feet missing the clutch of another hand.

  Ed was fighting admirably for a man of his age, but there were too many, he was attempting to create space between himself and the house to provide room to quickly attack the mob, but with so many dead, he was being overrun. Dave came jumping into the garden and stood beside Ed giving him a nod. Stood together, they began to fight as the dead continued forwards. Dave moved back to the door and tried it; it was locked. He shouted, “The keys Ed, throw me the keys.”

  “There are no keys, leave me. It’s a fight to the death; these profane beasts need to die.”

  Dave stood motionless; it was too late to run. He had to fight. Moving alongside the Doctor, they began hacking and stabbing as the numbers closed in on them. They were surrounded and fighting. A huge beast lunged at the Doctor and grabbed him around the shoulders, mouth gaping. Dave flashed his knife towards its skull, but the angle was wrong, and the blade rebounded off the bone. Another creature seized the moment and tore its teeth into the soft flesh of Dave’s forearm. He screamed in pain and withdrew his arm as the skin ripped away. Losing grip of his knife, he pushed frantically, but it was too late. Hands pulled Dave forwards and down, he fell to the floor as the dead dropped on him, too many hands and teeth to fight, they tore and shredded as Dave died in pain. The Doctor lost his battle with the large corpse who was straining its neck forwards, held off only by Ed’s ebbing strength, his head pressed back against the door as far as it could go. The creature sunk its teeth into Ed’s nose, the cartilage popped with excruciating pain as the end of his nose was ripped from his face. An ever-present supply of the dead followed the big one’s lead, they pushed Ed against the door, the force of the mass pinned him upright whilst he was devoured.