by T. A. Sorsby
*
Nineteen
The look of the sky showed half a chance of rain, so Neville and Damian went to change into something more suitable before we set off. Neville appeared in an old puffed-up winter jacket, and Damian wore the same noir-detective coat he had before. Laurel had decided it’d be a great idea if she borrowed one of my old leather jackets. She was a tall girl but didn’t have my shoulders. It buried her.
Damian had his cricket bat, I still had my old wooden whacking-stick and Laurel had her carpenter’s hammer slipped through one of her belt-loops. With the rifle and a pair of handguns between us, I felt like we were a little under armed for what was out there. Which Neville had picked up on.
‘If we’re going to be riding the highway to the danger zone every day, shouldn’t we keep an eye out for more firepower?’ he asked as we emerged into the foyer.
‘Perry said that there were a few places out of town, but only one hunting store in the city, place where he got this,’ Laurel said, tilting her head back at her rifle, ‘but I figure it’ll have been stripped clean by now, it’s stock’ll be in demand.’
‘Deerstalkers and lumberjack-jackets?’ Neville asked.
‘Hunting rifles and revolvers.’ Laurel replied, clearly not familiar with Neville’s brand of humour. ‘Scoped and unscoped.’
‘You get pistols with scopes an them?’ Damian asked, bleeping hid ride’s doors unlocked.
‘Fun, but in the same way as a desert eagle.’ Neville said, pulling himself up into the back. ‘Too big and bulky to be called a sidearm, and that’s kinda the point of pistols generally. I guess some hunters would use them though, if they want to give the deer a chance. Like bow-hunting.’ He added with a shrug.
‘You read that in one of your old magazines too?’ I asked.
‘Nope.’ He left it at that.
‘Pawnshop across the road has guns.’ I replied. Left it at that.
Damian paused with his keys in the ignition, and flicked his gaze between Neville and myself.
‘You didn’t think to tell us this sooner?’ Neville said.
‘Only just remembered. The guy wasn’t happy he had to show a valid licence for a box labelled as firearms. I told him your Service papers are enough to buy it from a dealer, and even then you’ve got to apply for a licence at the same time. He wouldn’t have it, but hey, that’s not just policy. It’s the law.’
‘We’ve been out there twice already,’ Neville said, ‘and there was a shop full of guns. Just up the road?’
‘You thought he just dealt in wristwatches and potentially-stolen jewellery?’ I grinned, looking over the headrest. Neville looked a little pissed off and Laurel was smiling faintly. ‘Sorry, only just thought about it. Besides, remember what we said about guns being loud and possibly attracting zombies?’
‘Still would have been good to have them.’ Neville said, as Damian started to drive us out of the mini-park. Yeah, I felt a little bad. But I had other things on my mind, alright?
He drove us up onto the main road and parked at the curbside, where we all dismounted. The pawnshop was one of a little rectangle of shops built around a fountain that hadn’t pumped in years, and was now more of an arboretum for weeds.
At the far end of the little concrete plaza was a run-down old arcade, on the left was the co-op I usually bought all my food from, and on the right was the pawnshop, squeezed in between a barber’s and a pub that’d been boarded up for the last few months – seemed rough, I’d never been in.
With the shutters down on all the windows and no people around, the place felt a little too empty, foreboding. All it needed was tumbleweed to complete the ghost town look. Just as I was thinking it, an empty crisp packet drifted up in a sudden gust of wind. The sound of Damian’s coat flapping echoed around the plaza. We spread out.
‘That crowbar in your trunk should get through those shutters.’ Laurel told us, waving a hand at the closed up co-op, which would solve any food issues we had, not that it was an issue right now. Still, we were lucky to find it intact.
‘But won’t get through this...’ Damian said, giving the pawnshop door a solid kick.
‘Security door.’ Neville hummed, something in his area of expertise, ‘Wooden cover, over steel. They’re real tough. Can’t drill the lock, can’t crowbar them out.’
‘What about going in through the top floor?’ I suggested, looking up at the building. A lot of these old shops had flats above them that the owners used as storage, if they didn’t live there. There were security bars over the window, but no shutter.
‘Should be able to find the right size drill bits in Stan’s place.’ Neville said, rubbing his hands, a man set to do some work.
‘Great, we should get on it this afternoon.’ I said, turning back to the 4x4.
‘What? Why not now?’ Neville asked, a trace of laughter in his voice, ‘It’d take us an hour at most.’
‘Because GCR’s a more important concern right now.’ I said, turning around again.
‘You sure changed your tune from last night.’ He shot back.
‘That’s different. That was about rounding up survivors, not looting small businesses.’ I frowned, seeing the way this was going. I know what you’re thinking – we’d have been better off with more guns. Obviously we would, you know I was already thinking it. But hear me out.
‘We can barely protect ourselves, what’s to say we can save other people? There’s four of us here and only three guns.’ Neville said, his voice growing a little louder. Damian and Lucile just stood at the side-lines, no wallpaper to blend with out here.
‘We have the 4x4, we don’t need to get into any fighting. We’re just going to GCR to see what the situation with the CDC is. We probably don’t need more guns for that.’
‘Probably? And what if the situation’s bad? What if we break down on the way there?’ he said, gesticulating at me.
‘Then we have guns already, and other, quieter, weapons – staying off their radar is better than getting into a firefight with them. We’re not defenceless and we shouldn’t be at GCR long. Plus, we’d need to come back to loot the co-op anyway,’ I said, forcing my voice quieter and giving a little nod to Laurel, ‘so we’ll get the guns. Just not now.’
‘I don’t see why we can’t –’ Neville started to say, but he was cut off. Something pounded on the pawnshop security door.
‘Shit, someone alive in there?’ Damian asked the door.
My vision blurred for a moment as my ears popped. Neville put his hand up to the side of his head in discomfort, and Damian began to back away from the door. Even though it was reinforced, he still wasn’t taking any chances.
‘Ghost dog.’ He said, ‘Trapped inside.’
‘Well there’s one reason, I guess.’ Neville sighed, giving me a half-apologetic look. ‘I’m in no hurry to cross paths with one of these things again, but…you sure you don’t want to do this now? Wouldn’t it be better to have them and not need them, than the other way around?’
‘What kind of impression would we give to the guys at GCR if we introduced ourselves armed to the teeth?’ I asked, giving him a similarly apologetic smile. ‘We might get asked to hand over our weapons anyway, then we might not get them back afterwards and we’ll be down whatever we find in there too – if we have too many guns, they could also just open fire on sight if they’re twitchy.’
‘Damn. Let’s get it done with then,’ Neville sighed, shaking his head, ‘feeling like this is going to be a long bloody day.’
‘Idle hands and that.’ Damian said, cutting me off before I could say something I’d regret.
By now we pretty much knew the blocked roads and the ones we could just about squeeze through, so it didn’t take us long to get onto the city centre’s main roadways. But as we got closer to the centre, taking one of the major thoroughfares, we started to notice the zombies more.
There’d still been a few of them, trailing in our big blue wake as we drove by the wrecks and side-
streets, but as we got onto the main roads a hell of a lot of them were trying to cross, heading out of the centre and into the suburbs.
‘They’re migrating.’ Laurel snorted as we had to swerve around a group of half a dozen, just crossing the dual carriageway.
‘They going where de food is.’ Damian said, his tone a lot less casual. ‘Centre must be a dead zone. Nobody left they can find. So they moving out into more residential streets.’
‘Shit.’ Neville muttered, ‘Won’t be long until they get as far out as Castle Tower. You swear we’re going back for those guns?’
I didn’t answer him. I looked out of the window as we drove by another zombie, a runner, coming full speed for my door. We turned a corner and it was gone. It was easy to feel safer inside Damian’s rolling fortress, in daytime especially, but I didn’t kid myself, we were still riding into the danger zone, as he’d said.
GCR, Shoreham Street, was over on the other side of the city, out through the centre and out through the suburbs again. Pretty much as far as you could get from our tower and still be in city limits. The centre’s roads gave way to suburban streets and eventually to a secluded woodland road with sloping hills either side. There were houses within a hundred yards on either side, but the long driveways and tall old pines gave the place privacy.
Out past there and we were getting closer to GCR. I’d delivered to there before, so I knew what to expect of the area. It was upper class, all white stone cladding and black slate roofs, with immaculate green gardens and maybe a kid riding a tricycle down the perfectly pristine pavement.
It wasn’t like that anymore. The first thing I saw as we left the woods was an upturned car smouldering away on one of the lawns, a dead woman lying on the grass a few feet away with a trail of gore leading back to the car. Looking at the tyre tracks in the road and the massive gouge in the lawn, she’d swerved to avoid hitting something, and the car had just rolled over.
Damian slowed down as we cruised along the street. Somehow, a burglar alarm was still going off in the distance, which would explain why there were no zombies around here. They were definitively attracted to sound. Laurel pointed out of the window at a group of a dozen zeds, their backs all turned to us, staggering in the direction of the noise.
Suddenly there came a crunch. We’d driven over some broken glass. It took them a slow second, but all of them turned towards us, staggering, unbalanced, their eyes empty, white and unfocused. After the first one let out that cold, hollow moan, the rest of them joined in. They were coming towards us.
‘How far away are we?’ Laurel asked, her voice going high.
‘That’s the broadcast mast, up there,’ I told her, pointing out of the front windscreen, ‘get us to it, now!’
Damian floored it, and I jerked back into my seat. The tyres screeched and the engine let out a brief roar as Damian worked up a gear. He cleared the length of the street and took the first left, trying to put some houses between us and the zombies, to break the line of sight, but all he ended up doing was driving us into another loose crowd of them, heading for the alarm. Fifteen, maybe as many as twenty.
As the 4x4 thundered by them, still picking up pace, narrowly avoiding parked cars on either side, they turned and started to shuffle after us, a few of them breaking from the herd and clumsily sprinting. One of the runners got a hand to the bumper, but we were going too fast for it to hang on.
Damian had to slow down as GCR came into sight, but there were zombies coming out of the woodwork everywhere. One staggered through the remains of a front door, another rose up with a mouth full of bloodied teeth from a body draped over a garden fence. I looked out of the back window and saw the sprinting zombies come around the corner, still chasing.
‘The gates, drive up to the gates!’ I yelled, taking out my pistol and checking the chamber. Four shots, I’d never reloaded, the speedloaders were still in my jacket pocket and I didn’t think I had time now. I should have been more like Neville, checking my gun every two minutes. Stupid.
GCR was a two-storey building, L-shaped, built around its car park and surrounded by a thick steel wire fence about ten feet high. If it wasn’t painted green then the locals would have had something to say about it being an eyesore. The gates were electronically locked; no way we could open them from the outside unless we had the right code. But there was an intercom.
‘Stay inside, get ready to drive but don’t fucking leave me here!’ I yelled, jumping from the safety of the 4x4 as we pulled up in front of the gates.
I pressed the white doorbell button on the intercom, and a little hum from inside the box told me it was working. I looked around the side of the 4x4, trying to gauge how far away the closest zombie was. It was way closer than I expected, maybe fifty yards, and heading straight for me. They were just smart enough to know I was exposed.
Suddenly, like a whip-crack on steroids, a noise split the sound of the growing zombie moans. The running zed’s head exploded. Dark pieces splattered down in a red mist as the zombie fell over backwards, hitting the pavement not with a thump, but more of a squelch. I heard the steady click-clack of a bolt being drawn back, as Laurel prepped her rifle for another shot.
‘I’ve seen flattened snails with more speed! Get a move on!’ she yelled.
I pressed the bell button again, tried keeping it pressed, tried pressing it as many times as I could, but nobody was answering. I took a step back, and aimed my pistol at it. Maybe it didn’t only work in the movies.
Laurel fired her rifle again, another miniature crack of thunder, and yelled ‘Runners are nearly here! What’s taking so long?’
‘This better work…’ I muttered through gritted teeth, hearing the moans of the zombies growing louder.
I did not want to hear an “I told you so” from Neville.
*
Twenty
‘Hello?’ a voice crackled over the intercom. I lowered my gun.
‘Hello! Yes! Can you hear me?’ I yelled at the box, not seeing any obvious ‘hold to talk’ button.
‘Hear you? I can see you!’ an excited male voice replied. I recognised it as the radio DJ. ‘Come in, quick!’
The gates began to open, two sections coming apart in the middle, going at a fair speed but a lot slower than we needed. I ran through them, signalling over my back for Damian to follow. He narrowly squeezed through the gates without losing any paintwork but forcing a wing mirror back on its hinge. Immediately they started to close behind us.
Two of the runners made it through as the 4x4 drove past me, heading for the empty parking spaces - didn’t look like the DJ drove to work. The runners let out something halfway between a moan and a scream, and steamed straight for me. My bat was in the 4x4 and there wasn’t anywhere for me to turn and run to, so I planted my feet, took a deep breath, and raised my gun.
My shot took one in the neck. It was moving around so much and it was so fucking close that I didn’t have time to line up the headshot. Still, it went down onto its back and I didn’t have time to make sure it was dead. The second zombie was already on me.
It grabbed onto my arm with both hands and yanked me forwards, pulling me into him. I was more than happy to oblige; pushing off with my back foot and ramming it shoulder-first, as hard as I could.
Dead fingers couldn’t find purchase on the leather of my jacket, its grip slipped, and I sent it flying to the ground, screaming and growling and already thrashing its way back onto its feet. I aimed my gun and fired. I’d forgotten to thumb the hammer back again.
As it clacked down into an empty chamber, I made a mental note to learn how to use a gun properly, let alone shoot it accurately. So I cocked the hammer with the heel of my palm, the cylinder revolving, and jammed the gun against its forehead before firing. Like a puppet with its strings cut, it crumpled to the ground.
A wave of heat came over me now the danger had passed, leaving my fingers tingling and my jacket feeling uncomfortably hot. I looked over at the 4x4 to see everyone else just get
ting out, looking over at me.
‘Thanks for all your help there,’ I said, taking a deep breath and glancing down at the two bodies. I’d planned on following that somewhat passive-aggressive statement up, but I got distracted.
The first one I’d shot was jerking around, twitching wildly, clenching and unclenching its fists and kicking its legs randomly. I leaned over it and saw I’d shot it right in the middle of the neck, probably lodged the bullet in the spine. I thumbed the hammer and finished it off. I’m not sadistic, but in hindsight I should have saved the ammo.
‘I was trying to line a shot up, but you insisted in going toe-to-toe.’ Neville frowned, unsure whether to be approving, or chide me for not running away.
‘Nice work.’ Laurel congratulated.
‘Lucky is what I was.’ I said, feeling my breath still coming quick after the adrenaline burst.
The glass front doors opened up, and a squat balding man in a lurid yellow floral shirt stood in the doorway, beaming from ear to ear. He didn’t sound as smooth as he did on the radio.
‘That was fantastic!’ Carl Sachs, GCR Radio DJ grinned, ‘The shots will have them crawling all over here, but…fantastic!’
‘He should have seen us yesterday with the dogs…’ Neville muttered under his breath.
‘People, real, live people,’ Sachs mused, walking closer to inspect us all, ‘and with guns! You must be with the CDC? We weren’t expecting you for days – but hey, I’m not complaining.’
‘We’re not with de CDC,’ Damian said, lifting his bat up onto his shoulder, definitely not a mercenary’s weapon, ‘seen, we thought you were in contact with them?’
As much as it was nice to see another person, if Carl Sachs wasn’t in contact with the world beyond, this trip had been pretty pointless and I’d almost got eaten for nothing. So I was put off the man from the get-go.