by Fleet, Ricky
“Let’s go.” John pulled the door open and a wave of frigid air hit them. They filed out and there was no threat in the near vicinity. Zombies milled around, but they would take minutes to reach them, so they relaxed a little. Kurt and Sarah took up positions by the front door. It would remain open the whole time they were out. Kurt wedged the entrance mat under the bottom of the door to prevent an errant gust of wind blowing it closed, trapping them outside.
John, Sam and Braiden reached the corner of the garden wall and looked around it to see if anything was close. They were free and clear for now, so with a last wave back at Kurt and Sarah, they moved off. Keeping low, they rushed across the road and hugged the wall of the terrace of six houses that ran perpendicular to their own. The one they sought was three houses down. Instead of moving down the main road and risk drawing attention to themselves by the greater number of dead who were in sight further down the estate, they opted to scout the back alley and rear carpark. If they could get in and out quietly, they may not even need to fight any of the undead.
“Follow me,” John instructed. They slid down the side wall, trying to conceal themselves the best they could in full daylight.
Looking around the carpark, they only saw three of the zombies, all of whom were facing away from them. They wouldn’t get a better opportunity so they continued their stealthy run down the rear fences, checking for open gates. They didn’t want a repeat of Sarah’s encounter. With their backs to the gate of the house they wanted, they took one last look at the zombies who were close, none had even noticed them so they opened the gate and ducked back out of sight.
The garden was extremely untidy, overgrown grass was attempting to grow through discarded toys. The shed roof was rotten and sagging into the dark space below. They pulled the door open, but there was nothing much of any use within. Any tools inside were rusted beyond repair. John caught sight of an object in the corner. It was a discarded lump of metal, roughly two feet long, four inches wide and half an inch thick. It too was covered in orange flecks of rust, but when he picked it up, it was still solid. He took it with them to the dirty back door, where they cupped their hands to the glass and tried to see within. The light could barely penetrate through the lace curtains and there was no movement from within that they could see.
“Stand back, I’m going to break in.” John raised the sledge hammer.
“Wait Grandad,” Sam said then ran to the shed. He emerged with an old roll of tape which still had some adhesion. He rolled strips free and stuck them to the glass until a whole corner was covered. Taking the hammer, he gently hit the taped section. The whole window panel in the door shattered into a thousand fragments. All that was left was the tape which held the other slivers in place.
“It worked in the movies,” Sam pondered to himself as they listened intently for any sign of danger.
“Don’t worry Sam. It still caused less noise than me beating it down with the hammer,” John encouraged, then reached in, turned the lock, and opened the door.
They entered and the silence was absolute. A musty smell assailed their nostrils, not dirty as such, just a lack of deep cleaning. If they didn’t know better they would have thought the home was abandoned long ago, the dust on the window sills littered with fly corpses. The dishes were washed and stacked in the drying rack. The strange disparities in the cleaning habits of these people unnerved John.
They checked the lounge and dining room, nothing was out of place and there were no signs of life, the utility room was also empty. The furniture was sparse and cheap, showing signs of age and use. There were very few decorations and no pictures at all, which troubled John more. They went to the stairs and looked up. Dust motes were visible, floating in the rays of light that broke the gloom from the hallway window. All the doors were closed to the rooms and despite standing like statues there were no creaks or sounds from the upper floor.
“Hello, is there anyone up there?” Braiden called out quietly.
The noise was met with the sounds of muffled voices and movement. It spurred them into action. They climbed the stairs two at a time, the thought of seeing another human was enough to cause them to lower their guard. They got to the door and Sam clasped the handle, the noises coming from the room beyond.
“Did you see the message? We said we would come for you.” Sam was smiling from ear to ear, but John’s hairs were standing up on the back of his neck and his skin crawled.
The door swung inwards and the smell of excrement hit them full in the face. The whole family was standing there, the mother, father and little boy, all with wet, brown stains on their trousers and dress. They had bloody foaming mouths and their chests were stained with a mixture of bile and coagulated blood. Sam leaped back as if he had stood on a hot roof. The family advanced, dribbling their insides down their chest in a thick torrent. The young boy was the fastest and he was on Sam before he knew it, clawing and trying to climb his body. The small teeth were snapping but the thick clothing Sam wore prevented them penetrating to the flesh below. Sam danced backwards, arms raised as if he had a spider crawling on him.
“Get it off, get it off!” he cried, leaping around.
The adults would soon be upon them. John kicked backwards, dragged the boys with him as the door shot open. Braiden had grabbed the little boy by the hair. Pulling him away from Sam, he stuck the screwdriver through the boy’s ear and into the skull. He went limp and Braiden lowered him to the floor with reverence. He was crying as he did it, consumed with the knowledge of how scared the poor boy must have been in the final moments of life. Sam had recovered and raised his slingshot, bearing loaded as the mother reached the doorway. He aimed, however the adrenaline was causing him to shake uncontrollably, he had come close to death mere seconds ago. The shot went wide by inches and embedded in the wall behind her left shoulder. John had positioned himself to the right of the door and as the zombie mother stepped through, he swung with all his might, the sledgehammer shattered her forehead and crushed her brain. She flew backwards and rebounded off the wall with a sickening, wet crunch. The back of her head had left a murky green patch running down the wall from the force. The father stepped over his love. Sam took several deep breaths. He drew the leather back with a steadier hand and released it in one fluid motion. The bearing was travelling so fast that it took the entire right side of the head away in a green and crimson spray. The body fell forward into the room, shaking the floorboards, a pool of slime spreading from the open skull.
“Jesus!” Sam exclaimed, still breathing shakily.
“Good shot Sam,” John complimented him. He carefully looked around the doorway and found the way was clear. One by one, they knocked on each of the closed doors and listened, before opening to check the room within. There was no more noise, the threat was gone. They felt numb, all this effort and risk for people that were already dead.
They went into the room. The stench was vile with decomposition and shit. The stains of death were all over the bed. The family had obviously lain there as they committed suicide. An empty bottle of bleach was tipped over on the bedside table.
“They used bleach? What the hell did they do that for? Oh God, what an awful way to go.” John held his face in his hands at the thought of them drinking the noxious liquid, the excruciating pain that would have soon followed.
“He must have made them drink it, look at the bruises,” Braiden said quietly, a faraway quality to his voice. They saw signs of bruising not caused by death, wrists were abraded and mouths had damage from the bottle being forced in.
“Mother fucker. MOTHER FUCKER! MOTHER FUCKER!” Braiden screamed and launched himself at the father’s corpse. He stabbed repeatedly, driving the sharpened screwdriver deeply, shattering ribs and spine. Over and over and over he stabbed, chunks flying free and spreading across the room. It was only the fear of the blood contaminating the boy that caused John to reach down and stop him. In all honesty he could have quite happily swung the hammer at the bloodied mess until i
t was pulp. Or given the power he would have brought the man back from the dead to kill him slow for the agony he had caused his own kin. It was not to be, so Braiden stood up and panted from the exertion.
“This is a dead place. Let’s just go,” John said, unable to say any more. They felt desolate and lost as they made their way downstairs. Instead of leaving via the back, they just walked straight out through the front door and into the cleansing light.
“My dad has a shotgun. Our house is just over there,” Braiden told them matter-of-factly. There was still no undead close enough to pose a threat. The thought of gaining nothing out of this day was unacceptable to the trio.
“Lead the way lad,” said John as he and Sam followed close behind.
They reached the overgrown garden and Braiden walked down the path, John caught sight of a glint in the foliage and reached down, pulling the shotgun free. It was laid in a pool of blood, but it would clean up fine when they got it back home. He broke the chamber and pulled two used cartridges free, throwing them into the grass.
“Are there any more cartridges inside Braiden?” John asked.
“Yeah loads, he has boxes of them, all different weights of shot. In here.” He beckoned them to enter and made his way to the cupboard under the stairs. He reached backwards and passed each box carefully. In all there were twelve boxes, totalling over two hundred shots. They stood in the hallway in silence. The drops of blood on the carpet, mixed with the general filth of the place, going unnoticed. A shuffle caught their attention as the pretty zombie with the hole in her chest walked out of the kitchen. They couldn’t even summon the energy to be scared, Braiden stepped forward and stabbed the woman straight through the eye with his screwdriver, showing no emotion in his face as she fell. Neither Sam nor John felt much either. Even the new weapon and the safety it would convey were as nothing compared to the happiness they had felt at the chance of seeing others. They left the house and made their way back to the main road that led back up to their home. Kurt was looking around the corner and waving frantically. They looked and saw a swarm of hundreds of zombies heading towards them from the road that entered the housing complex. They all groaned but something caught John’s attention.
“Boys do you see that? Over there!” he pointed to the terrace of houses two rows down, five from their own. Either it was a trick of the light, wishful thinking, or it was really smoke drifting from the end chimney, white puffs dispersing as the wind caught it.
“I see it too Grandad, its smoke. We have to go, NOW!” The masses had passed the smoke house and were advancing with menace. The sheer number was enough to make them flee for their lives back to the safety of Kurt and Sarah.
“What’s that? A shotgun? Where are the people from the house?” Kurt asked, fear in his voice as he watched the rotting advance.
“Let’s get inside, we will explain everything later.” The tone of his father’s voice told him it wasn’t good news. They shut the door, climbed the ladder steps and drew them up and out of the way. Crossing the attics in silence, they all entered the warm bedroom. Gloria was eager for news. She looked and saw no new faces with the family, it had been unsuccessful. Disappointed, but heart soaring with the safe return of her new loved ones, they all sat and John explained the occurrences in the house, followed by the retrieval of the gun. They all looked on with sorrow in their souls, the suffering was so unnecessary, and Kurt wondered if he could have done more to save them. It would haunt him.
“What we did see is that there are survivors on the estate. The fifth row down on the end has smoke coming from the chimney. We can’t get there, however, because of the new multitude of walking horrors that have just shown up,” John finished, hoping to stir some hope, but failing. The images of the poor little boy would be in their dreams tonight. Dinner was flavourless and sleep was slow in coming for all of them as they thought of the family in the mystery house. Darkness took the dying light and their consciousness both. They dreamed of being forced to drink bleach, the maniacal face of their attacker being their most cherished loved one. It was a long night.
Chapter 21
They awoke with a measure of despair, but mixed in was a glimmer of hope. Their failure to find life after the travails of the past two days hard work was a blow, however the smoke trail from the chimney of a house so close gave them fresh motivation. It had appeared that the number of zombies was quite low from what they could see outside of the house, meaning that they had kept a low profile. How secure they were inside was anyone guess and it would be these questions that would play out over the coming days. Kurt walked in to find John scouting the area from the front bedroom window.
“There are a lot more of them now, we are back to square one,” John said, carefully looking through the lace curtains.
The amount of dead in the lower floor of their house had been dramatically reduced by the cull. Their quick retreat from the horde meant that the large group that was following them up the estate didn’t have a specific location to congregate. They had spread out and commenced the pointless milling that they were now infamous for. The respite from the constant wailing and scrabbling from below was another factor in their improved attitude.
“We are, but we have proven we can take action and make a break for it if the need arises. We have plenty of stuff in the houses to continue to thin their numbers down. My point is; we don’t need to be idle and let them overwhelm us.” Kurt was hopeful and motivated. His ankle was still causing him a lot of pain after yesterday, and he would need several more days’ bed rest. He knew that he had been stubborn and foolish. This crisis would not be conquered by foolhardy actions. It would need calculation and resolve.
“I agree, that’s good thinking.” John paid him one of the rare compliments. “We should take the opportunity to gather ourselves and plan. I think it’s time that we claimed everything from the surrounding houses and take the stairs out. It will give us free run of the whole terrace.”
“Ok. We can then see exactly where we stand, what we have, and how long it will last. I think we should also prepare bug out bags,” Kurt suggested and John looked perplexed.
“What’s a bug out bag?” he asked.
“It’s an emergency bag that contains all the essentials, food, water, clothing, medicine and general survival gear. We can load the suitcases that I have seen next door with extra food and water. They all have wheels and we can drag them if we need to go on foot,” Kurt explained.
“Excellent. Let’s get some food and we can get started. You will have to rest up though, you were not ready yesterday and it could have caused problems.” There was the criticism once again.
“Well fuck me for wanting to help rescue people Dad! If we had acted sooner they might still be alive!” Kurt exploded, years of frustration coming out. “It all comes so easy to you doesn’t it? Well the rest of us don’t happen to be bloody perfect! How about you give your son some support, rather than rip him apart the whole time. I have had about all I can FUCKING TAKE!” he shouted and walked out of the room. Sarah had come to see what was going on.
“Kurt, what’s the matter?” she asked with concern.
“Fuck all,” he said as he barged past her.
John stood there in shock. The words had really cut deep. He had never intended for his son to feel this way. They could hear the aluminium ladder as Kurt climbed into the loft to get away from them, it must have been agony and John felt even worse.
“What’s going on?” Sarah asked John, hoping for some insight.
“It’s nothing love. I think I have just been a foolish old man. I have put barriers up since his mother passed away. I will talk to him in a bit when he calms down.” John looked small and broken. Sarah had never seen anything other than strength and self-assuredness from him. It worried her. They made their way back into the bedroom where the others were waiting, worry on their faces.
“Are you ok?” asked Gloria, leaving the cooking food and coming to John and Sarah.
“It was just a bit of a quarrel. It will sort itself in time. I think I need to make amends for some mistakes I’ve made,” John said, but didn’t elaborate further.
They ate a breakfast of baked beans and sausages, it wasn’t fine dining, but it warmed them and filled their bellies. Gloria set a portion aside for when Kurt returned, setting it down close enough to the fireplace to maintain the heat. The conversation turned to the plans for the coming day.
“We will start in the shower house, the stairs are already out and we need to get the remainder of the tools and useful items from the ground floor. If that goes smoothly, we will go house to house and do the same, removing the staircases as we go,” John told them, explaining further what he had discussed with Kurt.
“We will need someone to wait with Hope while we do this.” They had chosen to name her the previous night, tiring of calling her ‘the silent lady’. It fit in with their efforts to bring her back and keep her safe.
“I will stay with her,” Braiden offered.
“Thanks buddy. Gloria, are you happy to come and help us move stuff around from house to house?” John asked her, cringed as he spoke the words, felt the hot gaze, and turned to confirm it. She had her arms folded and a stern look in her eyes.
“I may be old but I am not useless!” she told him.
“I’m sorry, I know that. I can’t say anything right today.” His voice wavered and he looked at the floor.
“I was only joking dear. Come, let’s get these houses cleared.” Gloria put her arm around him and led them out into the cold of the hallway. They took tools and weapons with them, but left the shotgun as it needed cleaning and oiling before it would be safe.
Chapter 22
Kurt sat on the ledge where the killing table was moving gently in the breeze. His legs dangled over the edge and swung back and forth like a child on a chair, it was a little risky, but he had hold of the roof structure for support. The cold was biting into the exposed skin of his forearms, goose bumps rising in an attempt to fend off the chill. He had not thought of putting a jumper on in his anger and haste to get away from the ugly confrontation.