by Luke Duffy
“Prick.”
“What’s up?” Bull scoffed with a grin. “You’re a Welshman. You grew up in a country that’s so wet, it’s almost tropical.”
“You know the rules, dickhead. Never say the ‘R’ word.”
Within minutes the first splashes began to patter against the windscreen, steadily building up in intensity until Taff had to admit defeat.
“Bull, you’re a wanker,” he groaned as he switched on the wipers.
“You love me really.”
It had been a long day. All of them were tired, and unless they made it to the rendezvous soon, they would need to find somewhere to go firm for the night. They were moving much slower than any of them would have preferred, and it was beginning to cause tension within the vehicles as the men grew weary.
By now the sky above them was dark with thick cloud cover as the rain soaked the ground, preventing any light from the moon and stars reaching the silent Earth beneath. The road ahead was nothing but a canvas of blackness. It was impossible to see what lay beyond the bumper of the vehicles with the naked eye, and using their headlights at this point was out of the question. To do so would be a glowing invitation to any eyes that saw them in an otherwise dark landscape.
They were now flitting between the rural and urban areas with increased frequency as they headed deeper into the mainland. Despite the blockages in the roads, they did their best to avoid being filtered into the more built-up parts of the towns, keeping to the smaller roads and choosing to negotiate their way through the thousands of stalled cars rather than taking the wider carriageways.
Stan had hoped for them to have reached the rendezvous with Charlie before last light, but it was proving to be a much more difficult task than they had anticipated. None of them had ventured this far inland over the past eleven years and especially by vehicle. Charlie himself, along with his team, had insisted that they moved on foot across country and avoiding the roads along with the inherent complications that vehicles brought with them. Stan and the others, however, did not have the luxury of time and needed to use their SUVs.
Taff was driving the lead vehicle with Stan sitting in the passenger seat. Both of them were wearing night-vision goggles, but as Taff was having to concentrate on driving and what lay immediately ahead of them, Stan was able to give him more of a heads up on what was further along on their route.
The roads, like most main routes that criss-crossed the mainland, were clogged with debris and abandoned vehicles. Even nature had become an impenetrable barrier in some places. Fallen trees and overgrown foliage choked the narrower lanes for miles in some areas, and other roads were virtually impassable, needing to be bypassed completely and inevitably adding time to their journey.
Then there were the crowds of infected. On a number of occasions, the team had needed to retrace their tracks as the road ahead was blocked with masses of shambling corpses. They had been swamped by them earlier in the day, becoming completely surrounded as thousands of rotting hands and faces beat at the vehicles. With no other choice the team had ploughed on ahead, smashing their way through the dense throngs, crushing their bodies beneath the wheels, and grinding them into the tarmac.
The exterior of the two SUVs soon began to appear as though they had been driven through an abattoir. Smears of oozing blood and putrid human tissue covered every surface with limbs and other body parts trapped within the grills and wheel arches. For more than five kilometres, Taff had driven his vehicle while staring at the dismembered head of a woman that was snagged by one of the windscreen wipers.
The majority of the navigation needed to be done with maps and atlases that no longer accurately related to what was on the ground. As a result, a lot of guess work was involved, using gut instincts and their natural sense of direction. While the vehicle commanders attempted to find alternate routes to the impassable roads, the drivers gritted their teeth and kept them mobile, never allowing them to stop in fear of never being able to get moving again. It was a frustrating time, and doubt inevitably began to set in. The only thing that Stan was able to completely rely on was his compass. As long as they were headed in the general direction that they needed, and kept an eye on the mileage, they hoped to pick up signs as they drew nearer to the rendezvous.
Taff gripped the wheel and clenched his teeth as he steered the vehicle over to the left of the road. The gap was narrow, forcing him to bring the vehicle to a virtual crawl. On the right, a cluster of cars had collided. It appeared that they had been travelling in opposite directions, probably at speed, and had crashed head on into one another. Fine details were hard to see through the green glow of the NVGs, but judging by the severity of the wreckage, fatalities had most certainly been a result. Now the vehicles sat rusted and fused together, their passengers nowhere to be seen, having joined the ranks of the dead legions, or been consumed by wandering corpses.
“It’s as black as a witch’s tit out here,” Taff grumbled, keeping an eye on the dark hedges on either side of them as he cleared the wreckage and began to increase his speed. “It’s going to take forever at this rate.”
“We’ve got about another ten Ks to go, I think,” Stan replied as he held his light over the map and traced the route. “It’s hard to tell, though. We haven’t seen a landmark for the past few hours. All we have to go on is the trip meter.”
Taff glanced down at the dimly lit dashboard. He could just about read the digits that informed him of the mileage that they had covered since setting off. They had planned their primary route, along with three alternatives, and had studied the roads in detail before departing from the ferry. They all knew the distances of each, but with the amount of detours they had needed to take, along with the fact that some of them had been in darkness, it was hard to be sure of the distance remaining before they reached the designated rendezvous with Charlie.
They were making their way along a dual carriageway that twisted its way through the countryside. Without their lights, their progress had been severely impeded. There was just far too much debris blocking the roads. Added with the clusters of walking corpses that sometimes suddenly appeared in front of them, it was taking many more hours than they had predicted.
“You sure about the distance?”
“Yeah,” Stan nodded. “I think so.”
“I hope you’re right, mate, because I’m in serious need of a shit. I’m drawing pictures in my pants with a blunt crayon here.”
From the rear seats, a number of chuckling snorts emitted. Bull leaned forward and patted his friend on the shoulder.
“Shame you can’t do what I did, mate. You’d feel much better.”
Taff grimaced. The odour suddenly came back to him in its entirety even though Bull’s offense had been ejected through the window more than two hours ago. Unable to risk pulling over to the roadside, Bull had relieved himself into a plastic container out of desperation. Before jettisoning the foul smelling object, he had made a point of waving it around under the noses of Taff and Stan sitting in the front seats.
“You’re just a gopping creature,” Taff spat back at him. “I can still smell it. I think the stink got into my beard and nostril hairs.”
Bull began to laugh.
“Yeah, well, when you got to go, you got to go.”
“You only did it to piss us off. You should’ve gone before we set out.”
“I didn’t need to go then.”
There was a sudden jolt and a deep thud. Immediately, the vehicle dipped on the left-hand side and lurched towards the edge of the road. Taff compensated, twisting the wheel to the right and increasing the power to the engine and preventing them from going into a spin. The SUV juddered, becoming harder to control, but Taff managed to straighten them out and brought them back to the centre of the road.
“Bollocks,” he groaned, listening to the rapid thumps coming from the front of the vehicle. “A blow out.”
“Keep going,” Stan demanded while clicking his radio so that Kyle and Mark could hear
his commands. “We’ve got a flat. Push through, push through.”
Up until then, they had been blessed with good fortune, suffering no problems with the wheels on either vehicle despite the corpses and numerous obstacles they had needed to drive through and over during their journey. Now in the dark wilderness, with only a short distance to go, it seemed that their luck had finally ran out.
Taff knew that it was bound to happen at some point, but like the rain, he had never wanted to acknowledge the possibility. Regardless of their care and maintenance, the vehicles were old and not in the best condition, and the tyres were no different. Coupled with the multitude of hazards and debris littering their path, it was inevitable that one of them would eventually succumb to the harsh road conditions.
Stan leaned forward and began to scan the road ahead and the land to their left and right. He wanted to be sure that they had not driven into an ambush. It was unlikely, but he did not want to take anything for granted. If they were to stop here to change the tyre, they could very well be sitting right in the middle of a killing zone. There were very few people left on the mainland now, but he was certain that those who had survived had done so by doing everything and anything they could in order to stay alive. Killing others and taking what they have would certainly be part of a survival strategy for some.
The thumping and shuddering persisted as Taff continued to fight with the steering wheel, keeping his foot pressed down hard on the accelerator as their speed increased. He was growling through gritted teeth, the muscles in his forearms burning with the strain. From what he could see through his limited field of vision, the road ahead appeared clear, but all that could change in an instant, and he prayed that he would not need to swerve suddenly. If there was a blockage ahead, he would undoubtedly lose control trying to veer around it.
“Stop, stop, stop,” Stan eventually called into the radio, satisfied that they had cleared any potential ambush positions.
They had only travelled a few hundred metres, but it had seemed much further for Taff. On hearing Stan’s command, he eased off the pedal, and the SUV instantly began to lose speed. He did not need to use the brakes, and within seconds they had come to a halt, the second vehicle closing up to a distance of just a few metres behind to provide support, and if need be, act as an extraction vehicle for the crew in the lead SUV.
There was no need for words to be spoken. Everyone in the team knew the drill and their part in the manoeuvre. Stan and Bull jumped from the vehicle on the left-hand side, while Taff climbed out on the right. There was no point in him remaining behind the wheel. The SUV was not going anywhere even if he wanted it to. The tyre needed to be changed as quickly as possible, and every available hand was needed.
Stan and Kyle took up their positions, providing security and watching the ground around them. It was still raining, and the pattering of the water against the road and the drum of the droplets hitting the vehicles was creating a noise that diminished their ability to hear beyond a few metres. Through their NVGs, they watched the road to their front and rear and the dark trees and bushes on either side.
Within just a few seconds, Bull had already loosened the locking nuts of the wheel while Taff began hauling the heavy jack from the rear of the vehicle, manoeuvring it into position and sliding it beneath the axle. As Taff pumped hard with the jack handle, the SUV rapidly rising from the ground, Bull ran to the rear and pulled the nearest spare tyre from the boot compartment. It bounced against the tarmac reassuringly showing no signs of an air leak or damage. By now Taff had removed the damaged wheel, discarding it to the side and preparing to receive the replacement from Bull. They had practiced and performed the drill a thousand times over the years, reaching the point when they could change out a damaged tyre within less than two minutes, in any road or weather condition.
Kyle was steadily becoming soaked through, but he felt nothing of the cold or discomfort. That would come later when they were moving again and he would have the chance to complain from relative safety and warmth. Right now, all of his concentration was on the darkness around them. He was patrolling the area around his SUV, checking the roadsides again and again while Mark remained at the wheel, watching through the window with nervous eyes.
“Keep an eye out to the right,” Kyle instructed him, spitting the rain away from his face as it trickled down through his hair.
Mark was already covering that particular flank, his door open and his rifle in his hands, but the veteran wanted to be sure that he understood his role. The former sailor was humble enough to grunt his acknowledgement, understanding that Kyle was just making sure they had three-hundred and sixty-degree protection, and that it was not a reflection on Kyle’s opinion of Mark’s abilities.
The veteran returned to the centre of the road and continued to scan the trees around them. Through the splash of the rain and the swish of the wind through the branches, he began to hear other sounds. To his right he heard the occasional scrape and clatter of tools and equipment as the others worked feverously to change the wheel as quickly as possible. He blotted out the manmade noise and the din of nature, concentrating his hearing on anything else that was out of place.
All around them distant, echoing cracks and rustles emitted from the treeline. He turned to look, seeing nothing but shifting shades of black and green through the NVGs as the wind and rain whipped through the leafless branches and swept over the long grass at the roadside. He removed the goggles, feeling that they were hindering him more than they were aiding him. Placing them on top of his head he stared into the blackness, relying on his hearing and his intuition. Then, barely noticeable beyond the other noises, he heard it.
“Stan, we’ve got movement,” he whispered into his radio.
Through the drumbeat of the rain and the ceaseless swaying of the trees, the faint, haunting moans of the dead began to filter through the ambient sounds. It was impossible to tell how far away they were or how many, but one thing he was sure of was that they were closing in on their location, attracted by the sounds of the men and the tools.
Stan heard them, too. They were coming through the woods, dragging themselves through the thick underbrush, and fighting their way through the tangles of branches that blocked their path. The cracks were growing louder as they advanced, as were the sounds of their voices. He turned to check on the others. They were still beside the vehicle, lining up the bolts of the wheel. It would only be a minute or so before they were ready to move again, but he wondered if they had that long.
There was a bang, and the vehicle suddenly dropped before the wheel was in place. The tyre was flung away by the jolt, rolling to the side, and forcing Bull to chase after it. The jack had failed, causing the wheel arch to slam into the ground.
“Shit,” Taff gasped, jumping to his feet and grabbing the handle of the jack. Again he began to rapidly pump away, growling profanities at their misfortune.
“Get a fucking move on,” Stan demanded.
Taff was well aware of the situation. By now he could hear the cries and wails for himself. He did not need to be told that urgency was required.
“We’re nearly done,” he snapped back over his shoulder as Bull arrived with the tyre again. “Just keep them off us for a minute, for fuck sake.”
Kyle saw the first of them emerge from the blackness. It staggered out from the trees and into the road. It stopped in the area between the two vehicles and looked around before moving towards Stan and the others.
“Stan, behind you,” Kyle yelled, but their commander did not hear him. He was already moving to deal with another body that had emerged close by.
The veteran jumped forward and charged towards the figure as it closed in on the others. Before it could reach them, he smashed the butt of his rifle into the area between its shoulder blades, sending it sprawling headlong into the grass and weeds that were sprouting up from the asphalt. As he closed in for the kill, more of the dead began to spill out onto the road. He grabbed for the knife in his belt
, intending to deal the final blow against the creature that was now climbing back to its feet.
“Fuck it,” he snarled, raising his rifle and blasting a hole through the corpse’s head.
The shot echoed through the darkness, sounding like a sudden clap of thunder. The muzzle flash had illuminated the area for an instant of a second, revealing more of the infected stumbling through the trees and advancing along the road ahead of them.
“Contact rear,” Mark howled from behind him.
“Take them out,” the veteran screamed back at him. “Slot the bastards.”
The dead were closing from all sides. Kyle swivelled and shot two more dark and deformed figures that were getting close, while from a few metres to his right, Stan’s rifle also joined in the fray.
“Prepare to move,” Stan yelled to the men behind him.
They were out of time and needed to use the remaining vehicle to withdraw. He fired again, seeing a dark shadow approaching the area where Taff and Bull were working. The shot drilled a hole through the corpse’s chest, causing it to stagger backwards but failing to stop it. He fired again, putting a round through its face, and dropping it to the floor.
“Nearly there, nearly there,” Taff screamed back at him as they finally got the wheel into position.
As Bull began tightening the nuts, ignoring what was happening all around them and placing his trust in his teammates, Taff released the jack and ripped it from beneath the vehicle, tossing it to the side with no time to place it back into the rear of the SUV.
“Just a few seconds.”
He jumped up and headed around the vehicle towards the driver’s side, leaving Bull to finish off. As he reached the door he collided with a figure that had gone unnoticed while it approached from the opposite direction. Both of them fell to the ground, rolling through the puddles of rain water as they became entangled with one another. Taff sensed more of them close by and screamed out a warning to the others as he continued to battle with the corpse beneath him. It clawed at his face, biting at the material of his jacket and assault vest while Taff struggled to break free.