As he was talking, Simon picked up the ladder from the trailer and extended it so that it reached to the roof. Then he climbed up.
The two men stood facing each other in silence for a moment, then saying nothing, embraced each other. They were obviously good friends, and had made up their minds that they’d never see each other again.
The fact that they’d both survived the impossible and were now reunited brought a lump to everyone’s throats.
Simon leaned over the parapet and told us all to climb up. A few zombies were still hovering around the vehicles, but weren’t going to present any problems, so Ben and I grabbed our weapons and scrambled from the roof of the Volvo up into the trailer, then began to help everyone climb the ladder.
Twenty one of us gathered on the roof of the building. The seven who had already been up there looked sun burned and exhausted.
Typically, Becky stepped forward. “When did any of you last have anything to eat or drink?”
Simon’s friend replied, “We ran out of water yesterday morning and we’ve had nothing to eat since all this began.”
Without even asking, Chet and Louise turned and climbed down the ladder and quickly returned carrying bottles of water, which were eagerly grabbed and drained.
Maud, once more on a mission, began issuing orders to Chet to bring up the portable cooker and various supplies, while we tended to the newest arrivals to our group. While we kept them topped up with water to rehydrate them, she set about boiling more water to make tea, and pouring tins into a saucepan so that they could have their first meal in three days.
The water had a miraculous effect, and in no time they were all looking much better.
Standing next to his friend, Simon made the formal introductions. “Folks, this is Sergeant Dave Eddy; the oldest and the ugliest, but also the best sergeant the Marines have ever had. We’ve known each other for most of our careers and we’ve served together many times. He was my best man at my wedding and helped me carry my wife’s coffin a few years ago. He’s my best friend and if I had to choose anyone to help us survive the situation we’re in now, he’d be at the top of the list.”
Looking at him, he seemed to be made out of the same mould as Simon. A slightly older, more scarred model.
If a Hollywood studio were looking for someone to play a traditional “hard as nails” Sergeant Major, holding his unit together against all the odds, then Dave Eddy would be the man they’d pick.
Simon introduced us to the rest of the group.
The other two soldiers were Corporal Steve Popley and Marine Jim Ellis and the women and children were Lucy and her six-year-old daughter Emma, and Victoria and her twelve-year-old son Josh.
Between mouthfuls of the hot soup that Maud was spooning out to the ravenous survivors, Dave told us their story. Unwisely, only a handful of soldiers had been left to guard the base while everyone was being dispatched to other areas of the south-west a few days previously.
Soon after the squads had left, panicked and confusing reports of attacks on soldiers had started to come in over the radio, together with urgent requests for more ammunition. It had been clear that whatever was happening wasn’t normal.
After a quick meeting with the base commander, they’d decided to dispatch a rescue and relief mission to try to resupply the men who’d either gone silent, or were now sending through desperate requests for help.
The base commander, Lieutenant Colonel Burgum, had chosen to lead the mission himself. He knew that his men were in real trouble and wanted to do everything he could to help them. He loaded up the last few vehicles left at the base with most of the contents of the armoury and drove out of the gate with twenty men.
There had been no more contact with him since that time.
Sergeant Dave Eddy had found himself in charge of the base. He’d been aware that something terrible was happening, but hadn’t been able to piece it all together from the wild reports they’d been receiving over the radio. Reports which had now ceased all together.
Just as he was gathering his remaining men together so that they could plan the best course of action to take, the first zombies had arrived at the base’s gate.
The pattern was predictable. The first marines they’d encountered had had no idea what was going on and were soon overwhelmed. They were the ones we’d passed at the gate. In desperation, they’d fired into the mass of zombies and had soon run out of ammunition. In spite of their superb training, they were unable to maintain unit cohesion and had found themselves fighting for their lives individually or in small groups.
Dave had found himself with Corporal Popley and Marine Ellis and two other soldiers retreating through the family housing section of the base. Their ammunition was all but exhausted and they were reduced to holding the zombies back with their bayonets attached to their rifles. Victoria and Lucy had spotted them and run out of the house they were hiding in.
Realising that they wouldn’t last much longer, Dave had looked round desperately for somewhere safe. Spotting a ladder, they’d put it up against the side of the nearest building and scrambled up it. The other two soldiers had bravely held back the zombies to give everyone time to get up there. When they’d tried to follow, once everyone else was up, the combined weight of the zombies eagerly pressing against it had knocked the ladder over. The young soldiers had been thrown screaming into the pack, and the zombies had been on them before they’d even had a chance to stand up.
The group had spent the last two days watching helplessly as zombies swarmed over the base and systematically flushed people out from their hiding places. The screams and shouts for help had almost driven them insane as they’d witnessed their friends, colleagues and neighbours being attacked and torn apart, or transforming into zombies themselves.
Realising that they were trapped without food and water, Dave admitted that they’d felt their days were numbered and had quickly begun to lose hope.
When they’d first heard and then seen our outrageously modified vehicles slowly trundling through the base, mangling any zombie that got in the way, they’d all assumed that they were hallucinating. It was only when Dave had recognised Simon’s distinctive profile that he’d realised they’d been saved.
Our own story, which only covered the events of a few days, still took a good half an hour to tell. So much had happened, even we had a hard time believing that so little time had passed. We finished our story with our plan to make our way to Warwick Castle and told them that they were welcome to join us.
Victoria and Lucy tearfully admitted that their husbands, who had been dispatched with the other soldiers when the base was first put on alert, were almost certainly dead. They opted to stay with us. The three soldiers also agreed to tag along.
We explained that we’d promised every member of the group that we would try to reach their families and extended the same promise to them. Ben then reminded us that he wanted to go and see if his family had made it. As they lived quite close to the base, we decided to start our mission by attempting to rescue Ben’s family.
Now we were twenty one.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Simon and Dave volunteered to go with Ben to find his family. As Shawn was the expert on the tractor, he agreed to drive. Not wanting to put anyone else from our group at risk, we decided that a party of four would be enough. With the trailer for protection, hopefully they wouldn’t need any more than that to defend themselves.
As Simon and Dave had the most experience in planning combat missions, the details were left up to them. The first place they wanted to stop at was the armoury, to see if they could get hold of some more ammunition. If that wasn’t possible, Dave said he knew of a few places, such as the guardhouse, that should have a small supply of what they needed.
Before they left we transferred some supplies up from the trailer to the roof just in case they encountered a problem and weren’t able to make it back for a while.
We made sure that we’d carried up enough
food and drink to last us for a few days. If they were away for longer than that, then it was unlikely they’d be coming back and we would all have to get into the Volvo somehow.
We all shook hands with them and wished them luck before they departed. As soon as they were in the trailer, we lifted the ladder back up to the roof.
The groans of the zombies surrounding the tractor and trailer increased in volume and their movements became more frantic, as they sensed that there might be an opportunity for fresh meat.
Shawn started up the tractor and set the zombie plough to the right height, then systematically tore through the pack that had gathered around the front.
The twitching, writhing mass of body parts left in his wake was a testament to the power of his vehicle, which never faltered as it smashed through them.
They had a walkie-talkie with them and we hoped that from our elevated position we’d be able to stay within range of each other as Ben’s family home was only a few miles away. Ten minutes later they reported that they’d gained access to the armoury, which had been left open in all the confusion. Although it had been left almost empty because of the rescue mission they’d still been able to pick up some useful stuff for us. As the noise of the tractor’s engine faded into the distance, we sat down to get to know the new members of our group. Maud bustled about handing out mugs of tea.
Corporal Popley was in his mid-twenties and had a shock of curly brown hair. Currently single, he’d been in the Marines since leaving school and had been based at Bickleigh for the last six months. His family lived in Worcester so it would be relatively easy to check on them en route to the Castle.
Marine Ellis was just nineteen and had been in the Marines for about a year. He’d been on various postings but hadn’t yet seen active service. He was an orphan and therefore had no family to worry about. He was up front about the fact that if he hadn’t chosen to join up, he would inevitably have ended up in a life of crime. He’d chosen the Marines after a few scrapes with the police and had successfully turned his life around.
Lucy and Victoria were both thirty. Lucy was a petite brunette and had worked as a classroom assistant in her daughter’s primary school and Victoria had worked as a freelance bookkeeper for a few local businesses. She was quite a sturdy woman.
Their children, Emma and Josh, were sitting with Stanley, Daisy and Eddie, who were trying to engage them in conversation.
They were withdrawn and rather quiet, which was completely understandable, given what they’d been through over the past few days. I knew how well our children (I automatically included Eddie now) had coped and how quickly they’d adjusted to all the upheaval and the terrible things they’d seen. I hoped that Emma and Josh would gradually do so as well.
I walked over to the edge of the roof and peered over. This was my first opportunity to be able to study the zombies properly.
We’d encountered hundreds over the past few days, but at those times we’d either been running away from them, running over them or shooting and stabbing them. Let’s face it, being scared shitless and thinking you were about to die wasn’t very conducive to making a study of them.
I watched them intently. Like flies, the group below was beginning to increase in number, as more of the zombies in the area slowly made their way towards us and gathered at the base of our building.
They seemed instinctively to want to group together. They knew we were up on the roof and could have stood anywhere around the base of the building, but they preferred to coalesce in one location. It was almost as if they understood at some primitive level that collectively, they stood a better chance of catching their prey than if they went after them on their own.
They milled around together, but there was no actual interaction between them. I experimented by throwing an empty tin can off the roof just to the side of the main group.
They reacted instantly to the sound and almost as one large organism, they moved towards it. I continued to watch them. We were going to have to learn a lot more about them if we wanted to survive.
As I wasn’t worried about noise, I took the opportunity to zero in my rifle, which I’d taken out of the trailer before the others had left.
I asked Steve and Jim to give me a hand and rested the rifle on the edge of the parapet to keep it steady, then aimed at the head of a zombie that was about fifty metres away and pulled the trigger.
Steve was watching through the scope on his rifle. “Six inches to the right.”
Jim took the rifle from me and twisted an adjustment dial on the telescopic sight, then handed it back.
Steve told me to aim for the same one. It staggered slightly as I hit it but carried on walking regardless.
“Twelve inches low.” Once again, Jim twisted another dial and handed the rifle back.
This time the zombie crumpled as a small red hole appeared in its forehead.
“Good shot,” said Steve grinning, “now try a few more to make sure.”
Three carefully aimed shots later, I was confident that I could make consistent headshots from as far out as fifty metres. Conscious that we needed to save our ammunition, I stopped shooting, then reloaded the gun and put it to one side.
Steve and Jim talked about their experiences over the last few days. It turned into a bit of a group therapy session, with all of us describing our most terrifying moments.
The lowest points for them had been having to kill former friends, to avoid being attacked themselves. They’d seen a lot of men hesitate, and pay dearly for it with their lives.
Looking back at my own experiences, I realised how lucky I’d been. I’d faced death a number of times and only survived because Becky, Shawn, and then Stanley had intervened. On the last occasion, if it hadn’t been for Simon and Ben, we would all have died. Listening to everyone’s stories, it struck me that sooner or later our luck would run out.
We couldn’t afford to take any more chances, and if we were to stand any chance of surviving, we needed to get to Warwick Castle as soon as possible. All our hopes and dreams were riding on it being suitable, but it was the best idea we’d been able to come up with. As a theory, it was the glue that was holding us together as a group. It was giving us all a common aim and purpose; something to fight for. So far every new arrival to our group had seemed to grasp this as well.
As I sat there listening to them all, I realised that the plan we had in place was the one thing that was giving everyone some hope that there might be a future. It was something that would make all the horror we would experience on our journey worthwhile.
My train of thought was interrupted by Simon’s voice over the walkie-talkie. They were heading back and would be with us in about twenty minutes.
The tone of his voice said much more than that. The news was obviously not good.
We hastily packed up our gear and waited impatiently for them to arrive. Before long we heard the familiar sound of the tractor coming closer. The zombies below us turned towards the sound and began to shuffle towards it, their primitive thought processes collectively deciding that the approaching noise would provide a better opportunity for finding food than waiting for us to descend.
The tractor didn’t slow down. It smashed its way through zombie after zombie until it had cleared a path to us. The plough on the front was looking rather more blood streaked and battered than it had done and Shawn, who up until now, I had thought of as a cautious but skilful driver, seemed to be driving in a fury. The tractor and trailer ground to a halt up against the wall, crushing and dismembering the zombies pinned by its blade. I realised with a shock that I could only see Simon and Dave in the trailer and that Simon, his face twisted in anguish, was holding a small bundle of blankets in his arms.
Shawn switched off the engine and we hastily lowered the ladder so that they could climb up.
Simon appeared first, holding the bundle awkwardly against him, and to our amazement the bundle let out a shrill cry. The bundle was a baby!
Instinctively,
the women stepped forward and helped Simon step from the ladder on to the roof.
“Becky, could you hold her for a moment?” he said, as he handed her the crying bundle. The baby was immediately whisked away and all the women started to fuss over it.
As Dave and finally Shawn climbed up the ladder, I handed them the mugs of tea we’d got ready for them.
“What happened?” I asked.
Dave looked at Simon. “You tell him.”
Simon took a gulp of his tea and began. “There’s not much to say, really. After we’d resupplied with ammo, the journey to Ben’s house didn’t take long at all. The roads were reasonably clear and we easily dealt with the zombies along the route with our spears.” He went quiet for a minute, then continued.
“The housing estate where his family lived was a bit trickier, as there were a lot more of them walking around and on the narrower roads, we had to use the bucket to clear a way through the cars parked on either side. So of course, soon we had quite a crowd following us. When we pulled up outside his house it all looked quiet. The front door was closed and all the curtains were still drawn. We were actually quite hopeful that they’d made it.”
He took another gulp of tea, closed his eyes for a second, then carried on.
“We all shouted but got no response, so Shawn sounded the horn on the tractor. Then we heard the baby cry. Ben’s got a six-month-old baby sister and we knew it could only be her. Before we could come up with a plan, Ben jumped out of the trailer shouting her name, kicked the door in and went inside.”
He paused again and I could see that he was finding it difficult to continue. “Suddenly there were hundreds of the bastards, only thirty metres away, so all we could do was try to hold them back to buy him some time. We shot as many as we could and Shawn started to shunt the tractor backwards and forwards to stop them getting too close, and it worked. We managed to keep them away from the front door. Then Ben came flying out of the house carrying his sister. He threw her up to me and started to climb in himself.”
Zombie Castle Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 17