Hellspawn (Book 1)

by Fleet, Ricky

  “Who’s hungry? I’ll put the dinner on,” Kurt offered and they all headed home.

  Chapter 33

  The second day yielded less success from the propeller than they had wanted. They decided to rotate the blade in the opposite direction because of the stacked pile that lay to the left. They didn’t want to repeat the mistakes of the killing table. If the dead couldn’t make their way into the sweep of the blade, it would be useless. The final willing victims came blundering into the arc, eager to feed, but were sent spinning away in differing states of separation instead. The count had reached eighty and, despite the god awful singing of Braiden, they were now clear of zombies in the immediate vicinity.

  “See what you’ve done, your singing has scared them all away,” Sam joked. Braiden bumped into him with his shoulder, grinning.

  “I could have been a worldwide smash, just like Rihanna,” Braiden fired back.

  “You still could be, I expect she is wandering around now munching people,” Sam suggested. “The world will need someone to sing ‘Umbrella’.”

  “Under my umbrella, ella, ella, eh, eh,” Braiden crooned through the hole, but none came. “Bah, everyone’s a bloody critic,” he muttered. It was an interesting problem for them to have, they could see the dead and it was unlikely they couldn’t hear him, but they still ignored the noise.

  “I wonder if they are intent on something else, maybe there are other people down those roads that we can’t see?” Kurt asked, gazing out. The houses prevented most of the estate from being in view and if the dead had a fresh scent of food, perhaps they would remain fixated on it to the exclusion of all else.

  “Whatever it is, we are wasting our time here now. Let’s go back in the warm and see what the numbers look like tomorrow,” John suggested and they all moved off. “Good work Rhiannon.”

  “It’s Rihanna Grandad!” Sam said, grinning.

  “That’s what I said. You’re going deaf in your old age.” John mussed his hair and they ducked through the attic wall.

  Paige sat in front of the fire, adding logs and stoking the flames, whistling Umbrella. Just like the final song you hear on the radio on a car journey, the few shouted lyrics in the loft had brought back the memory and it was firmly embedded in her head.

  “Ok, I think the time has come to decide what we are going to do. The blade machine has allowed us to clear the surrounding area and it’s really starting to turn now. I can feel it getting colder by the day.” John was keen to make a decision one way or the other. “The main problem I see is that we need a certain amount of food to keep us alive, seven people and one mutt eat quite a lot. If we raid the surrounding houses there is no guarantee that there will be enough to sustain us through the winter,” he continued and nobody could disagree with the observation.

  “I have figured out our heating problem. If we could get a gas cooker from the next terrace over, we could use that for warmth and cooking too. It would be easier than leaning over the fire and singeing our eyebrows every time we want a tin of soup,” Kurt explained. He had been thinking through what they had seen and each of the six homes on their row contained electric versions.

  “Of course! If the gas is still on why not use it? That gas holder will have enough to last us for years if there is no leak,” John said, slapping his thigh.

  “I’ve always wanted a range cooker,” Sarah added.

  “You can have whatever you want, as long as you carry it back here,” Kurt teased.

  “Bastard!” she replied, laughing and throwing a pillow at him.

  “Excuse me, my Dad is right over there,” Kurt pointed in mock outrage.

  “Not guilty.” John held up his hands in a ‘not me’ gesture. “Your mum always said you were the milkman’s.”

  “He must have been a handsome devil then,” Kurt responded and they all laughed.

  “Ok, so let’s vote. We raid the local houses for food and get a cooker, and then see the winter out here. Hands?” John asked and everyone put their hand up. “Unanimous verdict, we stay.”

  A small cheer went up in the room, the decision was made and each of them felt as if a weight had been lifted. The food would still be an issue, but with their ingenuity they had already proven that they could destroy enough zombies to make their job safer. If the criminals could roam freely through small concentrations of the walking plague, then so could they.

  The sound of smashing glass made them all flinch. It had been close. John rushed to the window and looked out through the small unpainted patch, the garden and remaining fencing was bathed in a beautiful kaleidoscope of reds, yellows and oranges. At first it didn’t register, but then he saw the faint strobing of light behind one of the surviving wooden panels. Stepping around into view was a man they didn’t recognize. Clutched in his hand was a bottle with a burning rag pushed down the neck. He wound his arm back, threw it and the rotation was like a slow motion Catherine wheel; spinning until it disappeared through the broken window below them and shattered in a fresh roar of flames. The loud clanging of the ladder announced the arrival of Gloria who had been patrolling the houses. She was ashen and out of breath.

  “Fire!” she gasped.

  “We know, they have just lobbed Molotov’s through the downstairs windows!” John shouted and they all looked at the floor, expecting to fall through to a blazing shrieking death.

  “No, next door is on fire too,” Gloria informed them and panic spread through the group. They had survived the multitudes of shambling death only to fall to an arson attack.

  “Burn you bastards!” yelled the familiar voice of Archie from outside and he started laughing maniacally.

  “MOVE!” shouted Gloria, barging through and throwing the window wide and aiming the shotgun.

  “Shit!” Archie yelled as he dived for cover behind the fence panel. His companions had been expecting this and hid behind sturdier barriers than the thin shiplap wood.

  Gloria steadied her arm and pulled both triggers in quick succession. The gun bucked, issuing an ear splitting crack which made their ears ring in the confines of the room. The panel tore into splinters and the scream of pain that accompanied the exploding wood was like music to her ears. The wood, despite it only being an eighth of an inch thick, along with the distance between them, meant that it wasn’t a fatal shot, but buckshot and slivers of timber were buried within his flesh. Gloria broke the gun, pulled the cartridges and threw them, smoke drifting into her face causing her to squint her left eye. She chambered two fresh shells, but the murdering scumbag had already staggered to his friends, crying into the night.

  “Show me your faces you bastards!” she screamed and fired one more shot where she guessed they were, but it returned no yells of pain as the other panel buckled. Looking down, the first streams of smoke were starting to rise through the carpet. It was clear from the reflections playing on the grass in the back garden that the fire had taken hold.

  “Gloria, get away from there!” John shouted and pulled her backwards, causing her to stumble into his arms.

  “Kurt, get that stairway cleared, we need to get downstairs!” Sarah called from the bathroom where he could hear water splashing. She appeared with a bucket, closely followed by Paige, Sam and Braiden. Honey was barking at the floor, her keen sense of smell telling her that there was danger below.

  Kurt was already at the blocked stairway, sledge hammer in hand. He raised it high and brought it down with sufficient force to break two of the stair treads, which went clattering into the zombies underneath. He repeated the process until a sufficient sized hole was formed. The heat of the kitchen below the master bedroom was free to circulate upwards and it stung their eyes. With a better view of below they could see there were only two corpses to deal with, the rest were in varying states of dismemberment at the end of the row of homes.

  “Kurt, step aside,” Gloria said and stepped forward, pulling the gun tight into her shoulder and firing. A neat hole was punched in the forehead but the back of the sk
ull exploded outwards from the buckshot. Falling to the floor, there was only a huge cavity behind the facial muscles and bones, the rest of the head was pulverised and dripping down the beige walls.

  “Sam, Gloria, cover me,” Kurt shouted as he dropped the ladder and leapt down two steps at a time, risking another ankle injury. He cast a quick look around but the way was clear, only the conflagration in the kitchen posed a deadly risk. John had followed him down and they shielded their faces, trying to get a better view of the fire. They had been fortunate, the fact that they had taken a lot of the flammable materials upstairs and broken it down for firewood, meant that the fire was unable to spread very fast. The leftover kitchen units were ablaze and the wooden floor was roaring away. Had the dining set, cabinets and other shed contents still been downstairs, they would be fleeing an inferno. Sarah joined them and carried two full buckets handing one to Kurt, they both prepared for the heat, took a pace forwards and threw the contents at the burning floor. The first two were absorbed with a great deal of steam and hissing. The fire still raged, unaffected. Huge tongues licked the ceiling, which was breaking away in pieces and exposing the timber floor joists that supported the upper level.

  “Braiden, Sam, Paige, get water and cover the bedroom floor, flood it completely and it will help us down here,” John yelled and reached to Gloria as she lowered the next buckets down. They disappeared immediately and set to work.

  “Kurt aim for the kitchen, let’s damp it down and force the fire back,” Sarah yelled, struggling to be heard over the burning and crackling.

  He nodded to her in understanding and the buckets were used to better effect. The charred black cabinets were smouldering but extinguished for now. The main body of the fire was the remaining petrol from the Molotov’s on the floor and door frames. The ceiling issued blistering steam that forced them back into the hallway to gain their bearings. They could only hope that the water spilling down from the second floor, acting as a sprinkler system, would buy them enough time to get it under control. The home next door would be nearly impossible to save, but they could do something to slow it down at least.

  “Braiden, check next door, if it is safe to do it, take one of Kurt’s spears and break through the bathroom ceiling. Then use the pipe to shatter the bath, it will drop two hundred litres on top of that fire. Then get back and use the blocks to cover the hole, we can’t have it spreading if we lose control of it,” John suggested.

  He knew it was a long shot because the furniture and kitchen were intact next door. They were going to lose the water anyway, so it was worth a try. The steam pouring through the doorway and up the stairway was lessening and they braved the kitchen, tossing the water across the floor and having more success. The petrol was mostly gone and the burning floor was gradually diminishing with the combined efforts of Paige saturating upstairs, and the trio heaving bucket after bucket at the source.

  **********

  Braiden ducked through the hole, coughing and struggling to see. The attic was acting as a chimney, drawing the clouds of smoke and water vapour through to the hole in the end house. If John had known, he never would have suggested it, but Braiden was here now so he may as well try it. Dropping lower, he crawled forward and the air was somewhat cleaner closer to the floor. The houses were all laid out in the same style, and he knew the exact spot where the bath would be beneath him. Stabbing at the old chipboard floor in the attic, he quickly opened a hole wide enough to punch through, exposing the fully laden tub.

  The fire was already on the upper floor, he could see the carpet catching light. The flames were rising through any hole they could find to reach the oxygen of the first floor. He carefully manoeuvred the pipe through the hole and rammed it down, once, twice and the third time it pierced through the acrylic lining of the tub. Two more strikes had caused a crack that ran end to end, and the entire contents spread out and met the burning embers of carpet and floorboard in an unequal battle that did nothing to minimise the fire. The ground floor was a raging inferno that would, any second, be consuming the upstairs and attic.

  “Sod this,” Braiden exclaimed, and made to shuffle away back to their house and block the door, but was too lightheaded to move. His vision swam and he slumped onto his side, the rank air of the loft had lost most of the oxygen as the fire fed. He was looking at the attic hatch as his eyes finally closed, and the first creeping tendrils of flame came for him.

  **********

  The fire was out but they would keep a close eye on the steaming embers through the night. It wouldn’t take much to reignite. Gloria prowled the bedrooms scoping for movement, windows wide open to allow the smoke and steam to clear. It also allowed her to see the surrounding area more easily. The sounds of wailing from Archie were gone. She knew it was either from being taken back to their hovel, or they had silenced him, with a hand across the mouth or a more permanent solution, she could only guess.

  “How does it look?” John asked, meaning the firebombing trio, as well as the fire beside them. The night was brightly illuminated by the incandescence of their neighbouring abode. The flames poured from the shattered windows and climbed the brickwork, eager to reach the roof.

  “Not good, but I haven’t seen them since I shot Archie,” she responded.

  “Shit!” John cursed one of his rare swear words. “It looks like Braiden didn’t have any luck.”

  “Where is he anyway? We need him to help us keep the walls and joists wet in case the fire tries to jump through the masonry to us,” Kurt asked and they each looked at one another, the truth dawning.

  “Oh my god!” Sarah shrieked and ran for the ladder, reaching the attic in three huge steps.

  “Sarah, come back!” Kurt screamed after her, he could see the vast clouds of blackened smoke swirling above them. “Fuck!”

  He ascended and was blinded immediately. The air caused his eyes to sting and tears coursed down his face. He kept low and followed the coughing as Sarah made her way to find Braiden. Using his hands to guide the way, he felt his wife’s boot as she backed towards him out of the hole.

  “I’ve got him!” she wheezed, close to collapse as well.

  “Get downstairs, get some air!” Kurt choked, pulling her back and grabbed the boy’s leg she had left.

  He tugged and the light body of Braiden slid across the floor, pulling dust along with him. Backing away, he found John reaching frantically and with one final heave he had the boy at the hatch.

  “Take him,” Kurt’s voice was barely a croak, but John heard and pulled the lifeless figure down onto his shoulder and carefully climbed down.

  Kurt stayed in the attic. He dropped his head through the hatch and gulped down cleaner air, the burning in his throat would be causing him discomfort for a while.

  “I need to block the hole or we all die,” he gasped. Sam nodded and followed the rest of them into the bedroom where they had taken Braiden.

  Kurt took a deep breath and moved one block at a time before hurrying back to the hatch for a clean intake. The one minute task took more than five and was made even more difficult by the fact he had to work with his eyes closed. The ever growing heat from the neighbouring house reminded him of the impending danger. The final concrete block was added to the barricade and the smoke was finally cut off, filtering through the gaping hole in the other roof instead. Kurt rushed back down, desperate for news on their surrogate son.

  “He’s not breathing, no pulse. Get back!” Sarah pushed them all away and they could only watch, helpless.

  She tilted his head and administered two breaths, watching for the chest to inflate with the life giving air.

  “One, two, three, four…” Sarah counted all the way to fifteen, and then gave two more puffs.

  Kurt had entered the room and the tears on his cheeks were not only due to the burning, acrid smoke. Everyone was crying and comforting each other while Sarah desperately tried to bring Braiden back. She checked his pulse again and listened for signs of breathing, but all was
quiet. She turned to Kurt and the look of desolation and loss on her face caused his chest to ache.

  “Oh baby, come here,” Sarah stood and flew into Kurt’s arms, sobbing at their loss.

  Only Paige and Honey seemed undaunted at the events, the dog was going from person to person, licking their hands. The young lady knelt by the dead boy and lifted his head onto her lap.

  “Now then, we need you to come back. Do you hear me, stop all this silliness.” Paige stroked his filthy forehead, straightening the hair out of his face.

  “Sweetie, he is gone,” Gloria tried to tell her.

  “No he’s not,” she answered matter-of-factly. “He just needs to wake up.”

  The other members of the family didn’t want to press the issue. It wasn’t helping with her own psychological problems, but they would not push, they were too distraught.

  “See how upset you are making everyone, come on now. You have saved us all and now we must save you, ok?” Paige asked Braiden.

  Honey had lain by the side of the boy and nuzzled his neck, licking the face and leaving clean patches where her tongue had been. She started whining gently, trying to pull at him with her paw.

  “You can’t go. I can’t live if you leave me too.” Paige was beginning to break.

  Honey stood and furiously licked Braiden all over the face and then barked incessantly until Paige stroked her head. The dog cocked her head and looked quizzically at the boy, whose arm had started to twitch, clenching his fist. Gloria stepped forward and raised the gun.

  “Stand back sweetie, he has turned,” Gloria said.

  “But he hasn’t been bitten,” Sam protested.

  “NO, LOOK!” Sarah shrieked, pulling the gun away from the boy’s head. The chest was rising and falling, weakly. “Let me see.”

  She dropped to her knees and felt for a pulse, it was weak but steady. Braiden’s chest was rising and falling with greater urgency and Sarah turned him on his side just in time. He retched and vomited on the floor. His chest heaved, great wracking coughs issuing forth and more bile trickled from his mouth, his stomach already empty.