by Woods, Mark
Her fight or flight response triggered, Stephanie had reached inside the car and without thinking, had grabbed the nearest thing she could to help defend her boyfriend. As it happened, that happened to be the heavy steering lock that her boyfriend always used to secure his car whenever they parked anywhere. An anti-theft device, the sturdy piece of kit locked around the steering wheel, working both as a visual and a practical deterrent to any potential thieves and as a weapon, had the potential for doing a great deal of damage.
Working completely on instinct, seeing red, and only concerned with protecting her boyfriend, Stephanie had moved around the car, swung the lock, and connected it solidly with the back of the cyclist’s head. This time around it had been the cyclist who had been sent sprawling. Spinning around on the floor, the cyclist had sprung up back to his feet and promptly started charging at Stephanie.
Seeing the cyclist hissing and spitting like a mad man, coming at her like some kind of animal, Stephanie had gone into defensive mode, closed her eyes and with a brute force she didn’t even know she possessed, had rammed the end of the steering lock into the cyclist’s eye as hard as she could, before he could get close enough to attack. Whatever was wrong with the cyclist, whatever had once made him human was obviously no longer there, and so it was that Steph felt no compunction at taking him down hard and fast.
She had taken self-defence classes in the past and that was one of the first things they always taught you – aim for the weak points, the eyes, the throat, the groin or the back of the legs, and if you take your assailant down, make sure he stays there. Knowing that there was no point smacking him about the head anymore because of the helmet he wore would protect him, Stephanie had gone for the eyes instead.
The cyclist had let out a noise that was somewhere between a gurgle and a death rattle, before going still and dropping to the floor. Distantly, Stephanie remembered wondering if she’d killed him but then she had remembered her boyfriend.
Looking back over to where he lay after being attacked, Stephanie had felt a wave of relief washing over her when she spotted him sitting up and cradling his neck where the cyclist must have apparently bit him. She remembered she had just been about to rush over to him and ask if he were alright when more figures had begun staggering out of the trees – coming in between her and her boyfriend and separating them from each other. What was worse, these new attackers seemed a lot faster than the cyclist had been.
Stephanie had watched as her boyfriend had pulled at the jack he was using, sending their car crashing to the ground, and had felt a moment of pride when she saw him brandishing it as a weapon.
But then the figures had surrounded him.
And as they had all fallen upon him as one, ignoring her for the foreseeable moment, Stephanie had heard him call out one last time, uttering a single word that would be the last thing she ever heard him say:
“Run.”
Knowing she stood no chance against so many, and also knowing her boyfriend had given up his life in order that she survive, Stephanie had turned, started running, and had just kept on running.
And that was the last thing she could remember.
At some point on her flight, she thought she remembered being grabbed and attacked herself.
After that, Stephanie could remember nothing.
Until now.
Now Stephanie was wandering in the woods - lost, afraid, not really sure where she was, and wondering how much of what she remembered was real, and how much of it was false memories created by her sub-conscious to try and fill the void. She had read something about that once - how the brain sometimes lied to you and tried to fill in the blanks when you had gaps in your memory.
It was why eye witness testimony was often unreliable.
Was anything she remembered even real?
Stephanie had no way of knowing.
Shaking her head to try and clear her mind of such thoughts, Stephanie attempted to call out for help, but all that seemed to come out was a low, guttural moan.
Hearing other, similar sounds coming from all around her, deeper in the woods, suddenly she began to get the feeling that she was not alone. That there were others out here in the forest with her - others like those who had attacked her and her boyfriend back at the car – and it sounded like they were beginning to draw close.
It was going to get dark soon.
Already the forest was starting to grow dim where the sun was already beginning to set.
Stephanie wasn’t sure she liked the thought of wandering about through the woods in the dark. Not if there were more of those things in here with her.
Stephanie thought it had been early afternoon when she and her boyfriend had come off the road. Now the afternoon was rapidly turning into evening, and she had no idea where she was or even if she might find another person, someone to help her, before those things finally caught up with her.
For now, at least, she was out here all alone.
The only one who could help her was herself.
Stephanie again tried to stop and catch her bearings, maybe try and work out the best way to go next, but with a shock realised suddenly she couldn’t seem to halt her progress through the forest.
It was like something else had control of her body.
Like she was being manipulated by forces outside herself, and she was a prisoner locked inside, unable to take back control.
She was probably in shock, she told herself. She should probably just lie down and try to pull herself together – but if she did that, Stephanie wasn’t sure she would be able to get up again.
Besides, she wasn’t sure she could stop, even if she wanted to.
She couldn’t even stop her feet from moving for Christ’s sake.
Slowly, Stephanie continued to lumber on aimlessly; following the steady fall of her feet, one after another, heading on ever deeper into the woods.
***
Danny huddled by the door of the small gamekeeper’s cabin he was secured in, looked out the peephole once more, and lowered his shotgun - reassured now that the sound he’d just heard, the noise that had just startled him, had just been a bird taking flight from one of the surrounding trees and not another of those things.
As he gazed around the rapidly darkening forest, he thought back again to how he had come to be here; trapped in this confined space with a woman and child, neither of whom were his own.
He had been doing the first of his early evening patrols, checking the perimeters of his employer’s grounds for any signs of possible poacher’s or their traps, when he had seen them. A woman in her thirties, clutching tightly to the hand of someone he could only presume was her son, judging from the family resemblance. He had first spotted them climbing over the small fence that marked the boundary of his employer’s property, and had quickly approached them to see if maybe they were lost or in need of any help.
He already knew that strange things were happening out there tonight, in the big, bad world beyond the perimeter of Thetford forest, from the news reports he’d heard earlier on his small, portable D.A.B radio, so Danny had already been on his guard, but the arrival of the woman and her son had still caught him by surprise.
All afternoon, right up until early this evening when he had started his rounds, all Danny had been hearing about on the radio were news reports about a series of terrorist attacks that had all apparently happened around the same time in several major cities all across Europe. Mass outbreaks of violence and rioting had apparently sprung up in their wake, and there had been talk about people going crazy in the streets, just like something out of a horror movie.
No one would have probably blamed Danny if he had decided to just abandon his post and forgo his duties as Head Gamekeeper that night, in light of what was going on, but Danny wasn’t like that.
He considered himself to be a consummate professional and took his job very seriously. So instead, he had continued to man his post and had carried out his usual patrols as normal.
/> His boss, the Master of the small country estate he helped protect, was out of the country, overseas, so as far as Danny was concerned if anything happened on the estate while he was away, it would be Danny’s responsibility.
Besides, it wasn’t as if he had anywhere else to go after all and what’s more, this was Norfolk.
Everyone knew nothing exciting ever happened in Norfolk.
***
What Danny had no way of possibly knowing was that the violence sweeping the rest of the country had already arrived here in this sleepy corner of Norfolk.
A train, leaving London Liverpool Street station shortly after one of the terror attacks in the capital, had departed with people already infected on board. By the time the train had reached Thetford station, over two-thirds of the passengers had already been turned, with the rest well on their way after being bitten and exposed to the virus.
Out of control, with the train’s driver now numbering among the infected, the train had crashed and derailed; letting loose its deadly cargo and releasing its infected passengers to wander freely amongst Thetford forest.
Stephanie and her ill-fated boyfriend had already met up with some of those who had escaped the train when their car had come off the road.
The woman and the boy had been fleeing some of the others.
And that was when Danny found them.
***
The woman’s name was Victoria and her eight year old son was named Charlie. They had been returning to where they had parked the car after taking a walk through the woods in the snow, with her husband close behind them, when they had been attacked by some of the former passengers that had escaped from the crashed train.
Richard, her husband, had been quickly overcome, but had managed to hold the infected back long enough to ensure that his wife and child managed to escape.
In sheer panic and absolute terror, unable to think straight, Victoria and her son had run not back towards their car and possible safety, but instead, disorientated, back the way they’d just come. They’d managed to lose most of their would-be attackers on their flight through the forest, but a few of the stubborn sons of bitches had still been in pursuit when she had first seen the small fence - hopefully marking the border of some kind of property and even more hopefully, people who might be able to help them.
Victoria had almost sobbed in relief when she had first spotted Danny, standing there in the trees, watching her and her son attempt to cross the fence. She had rushed towards him, begging him to help her, trying to explain in gasping breaths how a group of ‘crazies’ had just attacked and killed her husband and were now coming after them.
Danny had just stared at them for a moment, unsure at first what exactly was going on, but then had heard the sound of breaking branches and undergrowth coming from behind them and the sounds further back, somewhere in the forest, of moans the like of which he had never heard before.
Thinking back to the news reports he’d heard just a few short hours ago, Danny had urged them to hurry; motioning the woman and boy to follow him - telling them he had ‘somewhere safe, somewhere they could hide, no more than a couple of minutes away at best.’
There had been no time for any introductions; all Danny had been concerned about was getting them all as far away as possible from whatever it was that was pursuing them, and back into the confines of the small Gamekeeper’s hut where he had been intending to spend the night.
In the end, it had taken them more like five minutes for them to reach the hut, and then only because the boy the woman was dragging along behind her had slowed them all down.
As soon as all three of them were inside, Danny had locked the door behind them, and then taken watch for any sign of pursuit.
That had been half an hour ago.
And he had been keeping watch ever since.
***
The small Gamekeeper’s hut they were in was camouflaged and not easy to spot amongst the trees. At first when they had approached, Victoria had wondered where it was they were headed - it was only as they drew closer that she had seen where the stranger was taking them.
Victoria thought it very likely that without the Gamekeeper, she might very well have passed right past the cabin without even realising it was there. Hopefully, she thought, that might work to their advantage against those who were chasing after them.
Despite being well hidden however, Danny could still hear their pursuers out there, drawing close and stumbling along through the forest towards them like they knew that they were here somehow. Danny almost felt as though he were in one of those goddamn zombie movies that was always on late at night, or taking part in one of those survival horror games his nephew always insisted they play together with the lights out whenever he came over to visit. Danny hated those games, and had always hated Zombie movies for as long as he could remember, so to feel like he was living in one right now was not exactly his idea of having a good time.
For one, he knew how those movies always ended – with no survivors – and two, he wasn’t ready to die just yet.
They were drawing closer, he could hear them. It was almost as though those things somehow sensed that they were here, but that was just plain stupid, right?
‘Things’- that was the only way Danny could think to describe them without using the ‘Z’ word and right now, he was trying to avoid using that because everyone knew zombies weren’t real, were impossible. He had caught a glance of a couple of them passing close by a couple of times since they’d arrived here and whatever they once had been, it was obvious they were no longer human, not by a long-shot, but walking dead?
Uh-uh, he wasn’t buying that. Not just yet.
Not until he saw something to confirm it with his own two eyes.
Thankfully, whatever in-built radar they had that seemed to be drawing them here, apparently wasn’t precise enough to lead them right to his front door. But though this might sound like an advantage, it did also mean that with those things meandering around aimlessly out there outside, for the time being, at least, the three of them were trapped here with no hope of escape. Not unless...
“Shit, shit, shit!”
Victoria was going through her handbag again; most of its contents strewn across the small, battered, foldable dining table that Danny often ate at, whenever he decided to spend the night here, whenever he got word that poachers might be out and about on the prowl.
“Did you find it yet?” He asked. “Have you checked all the pockets?”
It was like the second or third time he’d asked her since they’d arrived. In all that time the boy, her son, had just sat there in the corner; rocking back and forth, just staring into space, and not saying a word.
Danny was not afraid to admit the boy freaked him out a little; more than a little, in fact. He wasn’t sure he’d heard the boy speak in all the short time they had been here at the hut, but figured the kid was probably just in shock or something. Victoria had introduced herself and explained how the kid had seen his dad die out there in front of him, shortly after they had first encountered those things. Danny figured that was probably more than enough to make any kid go quiet but still, he didn’t like the fact the kid was so silent – it wasn’t natural for a child his age to be so quiet, he thought, shock or no shock.
Victoria had also described those things that were out there coming after them, and it had been her descriptions of what she’d seen that had first gotten Danny originally thinking about Zombie movies. But again, until he saw them for himself, Danny didn’t think he was ready to start calling whatever it was that might be out there by that term, at least not yet.
He had other, more important things to worry about first, he told himself. Like helping the woman – Victoria- find her phone so they could call for help...
That was what Victoria was currently looking for - her mobile phone – but so far she couldn’t find it. Danny hadn’t broken the news to her yet that even if she did find it, she was unlikely to get a signal t
his far out in the middle of Thetford forest, but that was just one more hill to climb and one more bridge to cross if and when the phone ever did somehow miraculously turn up.
Victoria reluctantly breathed out a heavy sigh of frustration and put down her bag once more.
“Yes,” she said, responding to his question. “I’ve checked all the side pockets. Twice. It must’ve have dropped out of my bag on the way here. Maybe I even left it behind in the car. I don’t know. All I know is it’s not here!”
She slammed the bag down on the flimsy table, making the whole thing shake.
Now that she thought of it, Victoria seemed to recall putting the phone in the glovebox of the car so she and her family wouldn’t be disturbed by work, trying to call her on one of her rare days off. Charlie had never really seen the snow, so to go out in the woods and spend some time in it had seemed, at the time, a good way of spending a little bit of quality time with her family.
Not one of her brightest moves, Victoria thought now, but no worse than running away from her car instead of to it in her panic earlier when they had been attacked. Now that really had been stupid. She and Charlie might have gotten away by now if she had only used her head. Instead here they were – stuck, trapped in this shabby little hut – lost in the middle of God knew where.
“It’s not here.” She said, hearing herself repeating her own words, as if saying them again would make them any less true.
“Shit.” Danny cursed, and then glanced away across at the kid who still sat there, barely even blinking at the sound of Danny’s cuss words, rocking back and forth in the corner. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.”
The radio was on in the corner, the volume turned down low, but loud enough that they could maybe get an idea what the Hell exactly was going on. Some official was saying that no, there was no truth to the internet rumours that the dead were returning to feast on the living and yes, they had matters entirely ‘under control.’