by Luke Duffy
Carl looked ahead of him, towards John who was out in front. His friend's broad shoulders were hunched forward and his thick forearms were tense as he clutched on to his club. He looked rather like Carl would have expected Neanderthal man to look like: squat and robust.
"What the fuck are we doing?" Carl suddenly asked, standing upright and allowing his hands to drop to his side.
John paused, holding his position like a hunter stalking a deer. He turned to Carl, a puzzled look on his face.
"What, what's up?"
Carl shook his head as a frown creased his brow. "We look like a right pair of dicks. We aren't in Vietnam, you know."
John looked at the way Carl was standing, his eyes travelling the length from his head to his feet. Then he looked down at himself, still poised for action, his hands gripping his club in both hands at waist level like a rifle and his knees slightly bent as though he was patrolling through thick jungle. He looked around him. The area was open, tarmac beneath their feet and buildings scattered to the left and right. They were in no immediate danger and anything coming toward them could be seen well in advance, even without the ninja walking technique.
John stood up and relaxed his arms. "Sorry, but my arse is twitching at the moment."
"Mine too." Carl smiled back at him.
Standing upright, they both moved off together. They walked cautiously between the buildings, peeping around corners before stepping in the open. Apprehension gripped them both and the longer the time dragged without seeing any sign of the rogue walking dead that had made it into the park, the more nervous they became.
"Where are they?" John hissed impatiently over his shoulder.
"Just keep moving. They're in here somewhere."
They cleared the area around the restaurants and gift shops and headed to the southwest part of the wall that ran along the front of the park, paralleling the main access road. They were in open flat country and could see for hundreds of metre to their left as they looked in the interior of the park in the direction of the information centre. They were moving east along the wall when the radio crackled.
"Stop," Carl whispered from behind. "I think it's Lee."
John turned and stepped closer to his partner, tilting his head and straining to hear what was being sent over the radio-waves.
Lee's voice was faint and broken with the distance. Carl knew that they were at least two kilometres away at the far side of the park from where they were, and at that range they were lucky to be able to hear anything at all.
"We've got one. Up by the..." Lee's voice trailed off in a hiss of static.
John looked at Carl, eager to hear more. "Did he say they got one? Where is he?"
Carl looked at the radio and thought for a moment. "They're up in the north west corner, on the far side of the lake."
"You think that's where the rest will be?"
"I don’t know," Carl shrugged, "anyway, quiet, I think I heard something else."
He leaned his head closer to the speaker of the radio, trying to hear through the crackles and hisses.
"Lee, it’s Carl, can you hear me, Lee?" After a few moments, Carl dropped his hand to his side. "I don't think we're getting them now."
"Did you hear anything from the others?"
"Nope," Carl shook his head, "but I think they're either in the woods or around buildings and stuff, probably hard to get a signal."
John looked up at Carl, uncertainty in his eyes. "Or maybe, well...you know."
A questioning look crossed Carl's face, then he realised what John was trying to say. "Nah, I doubt it. Lee knows what he's doing. I doubt he would come undone by a couple of those things."
"He is a bit of a hot head, though, and you said yourself, Carl, there's a bunch of them, not just a couple."
Carl shook off the shiver that ran the length of his spine and waved a hand. "It's just these radios; they're not cut out for this kind of range. I'm sure Lee and Jake are fine." He turned to John, hoping for confirmation that he had put his mind at rest, as well as his own.
"Aye, I suppose you're right. Come on, we'd better carry on with our sweep."
Both men continued to walk. They headed for the main gate.
The day was turning out to be a scorcher. The sky was clear blue with only the faintest hint of wispy clouds high in the atmosphere. Birds chirped and a gentle breeze blew the long grass that brushed against the fingertips of John and Carl as they continued their clearance.
They crested a small rise that gave them a view of the main entrance. They could see the trees that lined the road and the open area immediately inside of the gate. Nothing moved. There was no sign of the roaming dead that had gotten inside.
"Well, looks like our area is clear," Carl said with relief as he turned to John. "We may as well do a check of the gate while we're at it and then head back to the house."
John nodded and continued to walk.
Carl raised the radio to his mouth. "Steve, it's Carl. That's our area clear. We're down by the gate and heading back towards the house once we're finished." He paused and waited for a reply. None came. "Steve, can you hear me?"
John stopped and turned to Carl. He squinted and shielded his eyes from the bright sunlight. "Are you getting anybody on that thing?"
"Steve isn't answering." Carl was looking down at the radio, gently tapping the side against his palm in the hope of it suddenly squawking to life.
He raised it to his mouth again. "Is there anyone hearing me? It's, Carl. We're down at the gate." There was no reply.
He was starting to feel alarmed and his face showed it as he looked back at John. "Shit, you don't think they've all been attacked, do you?"
John ran a hand through his short hair. "I doubt it. We would've heard from Jen or Claire on the roof at least. Maybe it's just the radio?"
"That's the problem though; I'm not getting the rooftop bunch either." Carl looked in the direction he knew the other clearance teams to be. "Steve should only be a kilometre in that direction, at the most."
"So?"
"Well I think we should walk that way in case they need our help," Carl suggested.
John nodded. "Okay, we'll do that then."
They continued walking toward the gate with the intention of checking that final area and then following the main access road towards the mansion, then veering off toward the built up area of the park and to the lake.
At the gate, all was as they had expected. There were a few strays hanging around on the other side of the bars, but they had been ready for that and it was not a shock to them. The bodies of two men and a woman hissed and moaned as they shook the gate and tried to reach through with clutching and grasping hands. They threw themselves at the steel bars as they became more excited, or frustrated; John could not be sure which.
John turned to the camera mounted at the side of the gate on top of the wall and waved.
A sudden snap from the tree line behind them caused his head to turn rapidly. He held a hand out and snapped his fingers to gain Carl's attention. Both men stooped and squinted into the gloom of the foliage, just forty metres from where they stood.
"What? What did you see?" Carl whispered from his left. He was suddenly on high alert and he had no idea why. He had heard John click his fingers and when he turned, John was back in his stalking position, crouched and poised, and focussed completely on the bushes and trees in front of them. Not knowing made him nervous.
John kept his eyes glued to the shadowy undergrowth of the trees and held a finger up at Carl. "I heard something."
Carl frowned and thought for a moment. He watched John and followed his line of sight but saw nothing except bushes and tree bark. He shook his head and stood upright again. "You heard something? For fuck sake, John...."
John looked back at him and began to speak. "Yeah, I...."
Two figures crashed out from within the woods and headed straight for them, a third and a fourth soon followed. They broke into a sprint and reached out
their arms in front them, a long screeching moan erupting from their dead mouths.
Without another word, John turned and sprinted back the way they had come. He turned right at the gate and headed for the open fields and the central area of the park.
"Oh shit, oh shit...." John panted as he turned and raced away from the gate and the dead.
For a moment, Carl had been frozen to the spot as he watched the four nightmarish creatures explode from the undergrowth and head straight for them. He had not seen any fast movers for a while, let alone four of them in the same place. It was only the blur of John as he sprinted across his path and the hard tug he gave him on the arm, encouraging him to follow, that forced Carl into action.
Without another look back, Carl followed him.
"Run, John, run," Carl was screaming from behind.
He was closing the gap, and soon he would overtake John and leave him behind. He was much faster and fitter and he knew that John would struggle to keep up, or even keep going for long. If he stayed at the same pace, the pursuing dead would catch them both, eventually. Carl glanced back over his shoulder; they were still there and they were not slowing. He looked to his left and slightly ahead at his friend.
John's arms were pumping hard and his heavy feet bounded across the grass like a stampeding wildebeest as he did his best to outpace the lifeless, yet ravenous, monsters that chased him. His lungs burned and his breath was coming in gulps as his muscles screamed out for oxygenated blood. His heart pounded in his ears and thumped in his chest. It felt like it was about to burst or seize up entirely, but he kept on going. Fear alone was pushing him forward but he knew himself, he would not be able to keep going for long.
He looked across at Carl, who was now level with him. He could see the fear burning in his eyes. He looked back at the dead. They were just thirty metres away. He still clutched the heavy iron bar in his hand and, for a fleeting moment, he considered turning and fighting them, but he knew he had no chance. Not even with Carl fighting by his side. Against four runners, they would not last long.
"Keep going, John," Carl encouraged. "Don't look back and don't slow down. I'll not leave you."
Carl had already made the decision that there was no way on earth that he would desert his friend to become an easy lunch for the dead. He, too, was struggling. He had not run in a long time and it was his muscle memory and the adrenaline that powered him forward. His lungs had long since given up on keeping pace with his heart rate and the demand of his oxygen starved muscles. His legs burned and his chest hurt, but the snarling and moaning of the creatures that slowly closed the gap between them, forced him forward.
John and Carl were starting to slow.
They had run at full pace for three hundred metres and the sprinting corpses pursuing them had shortened the gap to just fifteen metres. The fall of the footsteps behind them became more audible in their ears and they could almost feel the cold, lifeless fingertips making contact with their backs. They could see the roofs of the buildings in the distance and knew that they would have a better chance once they were in amongst the offices, restaurants and gift shops.
They would never make it. Carl knew that. He glanced to his right and at the trees. He reached over and tugged on John's arm, forcing him to change direction.
"This way, move!" he screamed.
John followed suit. He was beginning to lose his vision, the blood in his veins and muscles felt like acid as his body screamed for a halt. His steps became less sure footed and he began to stumble as he followed Carl. A bone-chilling wail from behind helped him to drain the very last of his reserves and, for a second, he felt a surge of energy run through him. He picked up his pace and raced forward.
"The trees, John, get in the trees," Carl shouted over his shoulder.
John was unable to answer, but he understood and he followed on as Carl crashed through the foliage that marked the start of the woods. The leaves and branches swiped and lashed at their faces but neither of them noticed.
Carl ran headlong through the rustling leaves below his feet and bounded over fallen stumps and folds in the ground.
"There, that one." He pointed at a tree to their front. "Fucking get up it, John, quick!" he ordered.
John saw where Carl pointed and headed straight for the large, thick tree ahead of him. As he approached it, and without slowing down, he weighed it up and automatically calculated at what point he was to leap and where to grasp with his hands in order to begin a fast ascent. He dipped his head and ran past Carl, who had now slowed in order to allow John to get ahead of him and begin climbing.
One of the dead was ahead of the pack. Carl raised his club and swung with all the strength he could muster. It collided with the side of its head and the body was thrown to the side, it smacked into another tree before hitting the ground. It began to struggle to its feet again and Carl turned toward the tree they had singled out as their safe haven.
John was scrambling up the trunk, grasping at any branch or hollow he could grip onto and desperately trying to get as far away from the ground as possible.
Carl lurched and gripped on to the bark and began to haul himself up. He reached out for a branch that would allow him to pull his legs up from ground level.
A hand gripped his foot, and for a moment he almost lost his grip as the sudden weight became a larger burden on his already exhausted body. The hand clutched tighter and pulled, dragging him down and causing his free foot to slip from the bark of the tree, leaving just his hands grasping on to the branch. He was losing strength and his grip began to slacken as he grunted with effort. The rough bark cut into his fingers as he thrashed with his legs trying to break the grasp of the corpse below him.
The others were approaching fast. They reached out and moaned loudly as they closed in on the tree and the soft flesh that hung from it, writhing in a hopeless attempt to get away from them.
Carl was now hanging on by just his fingertips and his hold was slackening. At any moment his fingers would slip and he would tumble to the ground and land in the clutching arms of the four emaciated, but deadly, bodies below him, their teeth gnashing and tearing into his flesh as their claw-like fingers gouged at his soft tissue.
Carl was terrified. He peered down past his legs and saw their faces. Their lips peeled back, giving the impression of a sneer or malicious grin. Their teeth snapped shut continually and they reached in the air above them in anticipation of the meal before them. His fingers slipped and his grip was lost.
"Shit…," he screamed.
For an instant, he felt himself tumble, then he stopped.
John gripped on for all his might. He clasped with both hands at the forearm of Carl as he braced himself with his feet wedged against a large branch of the tree. He was face down and his head was below his feet as he clung on to his friend's arm. Using his feet as a counter weight, he pushed off the underside of the branch and heaved. He grunted and growled with the strain and the effort.
Carl turned to him, his face full of shock and surprise as John continued to pull him up.
He felt the grip of the hand clutching at his foot loosen. With his free leg, he kicked and began to scramble up the tree as John heaved him upward and to safety.
Carl had been sure that he was about to fall into the group of walking dead below him, but John, his friend and saviour, had caught him and was now hauling him up with all the strength he would expect of a world class power lifter.
Carl threw his other hand up and grasped on to John's sleeve, pulling himself that little bit further from the clutching death below. With both his feet now free, he scrambled up the tree and threw himself on to the large branch on which John was sprawled.
He lay there, gasping for air.
Neither of them spoke for a moment as they lay there, dizzy with exhaustion and panting for breath.
John began to cough and splutter uncontrollably, and before long he was leaning over the thick branch and throwing the entire contents of his stomach up a
nd onto the heads of the four bewildered and thrashing dead below them.
Carl began to vomit, too, when he saw that the dead were biting chunks out of each other's faces and eating the warm vomit that John had just thrown on to them.
The two men were done. Their legs trembled and their heads spun. Both had splitting headaches and their throats were dry as bone, but they were alive.
John knew that he would never have made it without Carl being there to help him and Carl knew that he would be a bloody pulp at the foot of the tree at that moment if John had not pulled him up.
Panting for breath, and with a voice that threatened to crack, John leaned over and spoke between gulps of air. "What…do we do…now, then?"
Carl lay on his back; his head was spinning and his chest heaved uncontrollably. "Right now, I don't care. I'm fucked. I think the wife will be mad at me, though, if I'm not back for dinner."
John and Carl were stuck. Exhausted and terrified, they were trapped in a tree with four un-dead ghouls pacing at the foot of where they were perched.
9
For weeks the body of Andy Moorcroft had roamed the countryside, bouncing from one town to the next, passing through villages and trailing the roads that linked them. He headed nowhere in particular. The tarmac beneath his feet just encouraged him to keep moving, acting as a conveyor belt and feeding him from the rural, to the urban areas and back to the rural.
The miles upon miles of shuffling and staggering along the hard tarmac roads and rocky and uneven dirt tracks began to show on the shoes that he wore. They were tattered and beaten. The tread had begun to wear thin and the leather uppers were torn and ripped, exposing the rotting skin of his feet beneath.
His clothes were no better. The jacket hung from his body, waterlogged and sagging from his bony shoulders as his muscles wasted and rotted away. It was covered in all manner of filth. Stains such as everyday dirt and grime but there was dried blood, putrefied flesh and pus, too.