We worked solidly on building at the same time and started using the yoke Dal had made. It meant we could bring up twice as much wood. By the time we’d finished, the stand of trees between the Ring and the car park had been completely levelled, and we had two huge stacks of timber posts in the camp. David told me there were one hundred and twelve twenty-foot posts, and one hundred and seventy six eight-foot posts. Al had felled nearly two hundred trees in a week, and slept for a whole day when he’d finished. There was also now a clear view from the back of the Ring down the path to the car park, which would prove useful when we made forays away from camp.
The first objective was to get more fuel. We’d already used up the petrol we’d salvaged from Jay’s garage, and he couldn’t finish cutting the timber until we found some more. David, Al and I plundered the fuel tanks of the two empty cars that had been left in the car park, presumably by dog walkers on the day the virus hit. We even ventured out into the fields - the vast combine harvester in the northern field was too tempting, its elephantine grain pipe angled into the top of a truck next to it. We’d approached cautiously; the human activity needed to work the two huge machines had obviously been interrupted mid-flow, but we’d found no-one; no blood or signs of struggle. There was a pack of rolling tobacco in the cab, and there we’d sat, on comfortable seats for the first time in two weeks, fifteen feet above a half-mown field, sucking on our roll-ups, eyes closed, smiling serenely. None of us had smoked anything in a while, but even just with tobacco the smoke made us light-headed and giggly. The truck’s top was open to the rain and sun so the grain inside had spoilt, but some of the ducting in the harvester had loads of completely dry wheat packed into it. We filled up two bin bags.
On the way back a dozen or so sheep, straggly and damp, had flocked around us. They were probably hungry, but so were we; so we set about the youngest looking ones with our weapons. We only got two cleanly before the rest fled, so we radioed for a horse to come down to help take the grain and the meat back to camp.
Jay and Dal had got into a rhythm of taking turns to walk the perimeter of the Ring during the day – a mile round, according to the National Trust information board at the entrance to the car park. We generally let the dogs use their noses at night, but the infiltrations were getting fewer and fewer. Jay had grand plans; as soon as there were enough people available he planned to have two walking the perimeter in opposite directions, working in shifts all day and night. We could cope with whatever freaks made their way up into the ring, and we’d certainly not seen anything like the attacking hordes we’d fought off in the first week.
David had some great ideas too – he’d thought up a ‘pungee-pit’ design for the V-shaped notch – the widest and most accessible entrance up to the camp from below. It was basically sharpened poles stuck into the ground, pointing outwards like a hedgehog’s spines to block the gap. He thought we’d need around a hundred to make it effective, and we could string brambles between the poles to catch the skin of any stinkers trying to get into camp. We needed a fat masonry drill the same width as the poles, so I added that to my new salvage list for Sainsbury’s and B&Q, both of which we planned to hit on the next expedition. As for the poles themselves, we had plenty of straight, strong branches from the coppice, each about the width of a broom handle. David said they’d be perfect, and he earmarked about a hundred and piled them next to the stores, spending his spare time whittling each end to a sharp point with Al’s knife.
After we had finished the Goth’s cabin earlier that week we’d all helped Dal to make a start on one for his family. Next to be built after Dawn and David’s should have been mine and Lou’s new house, but we wanted to get a roof over the kid’s heads as soon as possible. David and Dawn were a bit tearful when they saw the cabin with its roof on; it certainly looked good enough to call ‘home’.
Dawn and Lou had packed any gaps between the logs with moss and mud, and made a tie-off for the horses around the back. Inside, the cabin was split into two; around half for their bed and a place to sit, and half for the food, equipment and other supplies we’d all accumulated. David was now officially the camp quartermaster. He had to get good at shooting rats with the nail-gun. I added Maui to the new salvage list. I hoped she’d made it.
First out of quarantine were Glyn and his family. The kids - twins Danny and Anthony - got on well with Dal’s children, even though they were older, and the dogs loved having them around to burn off their extra energy. His wife Debbie was small and fragile-looking, but she had complained furiously when I demanded that the children sign the agreement too. I explained that if she wanted them to stay, they’d have to be prepared to stop the zombies as much as the next person. She’d questioned the word ‘zombie’, asking me if I was out of my tiny mind, and I was a bit disappointed to see Glyn kept quiet. I didn’t want to get into a debate about it, so I just repeated myself, saying that they were welcome to leave. Eventually Glyn talked quietly to her, and Danny and Anthony had signed on the dotted line. They were only ten or so but they were both eager to muck in, and after getting some inspiration from our makeshift armoury, were also keen to start making their own weapons. Glyn was a fan of archery and mentioned getting a few longbows made from the wood. Debbie still wasn’t happy.
‘How come you lot are so cheerful about it? I’ve lost some of my family you know,’ she said, rather pompously. Al’s hackles had risen at that, and Lou explained that we’d lost several people. She shut up when she saw Vaughan’s grave and the little headstone we’d made for Sachbir.
‘I still don’t get how you can be so up for it,’ she said glumly.
‘What do you suggest we do?’ Lou asked her. ‘Roll over and die?’
[days 0016 – 0030]
Brian’s face was a picture when he finally got out. Jenna had stripped off the day before to prove she’d not been infected, and joined the rest of us in camp. He was right; she was as useless as arseholes, and sat moaning that we couldn’t supply her with a tent. She just kept on and on, and when that got her nowhere she’d tried to be funny, or cute, or endearing or whatever. Lou and Dawn took a dislike to her, but remained polite and as helpful as they could stomach, watching her as she lounged about and refused to get her hands ‘filthy’. She’d signed the agreement though, and I asked David to note her intake of water and food. I made sure Lou checked her out for bite marks and not one of the lads, but Brian was still fuming. He’d got a case of the squits pretty bad, and Dal had laughed at his weak European gut system. Jez had been mercilessly cruel to Brian, having done his stint and been released, and the first thing Brian did when he got out was to lamp him one. I’d made them shake hands when Jez came round again, but Brian still hadn’t been that sporting about it.
‘Why’d you have to be such a cheeky little twat?’
‘I’m not the only cheeky little twat around here – I spent last night with Jenna when you were stuck in your little grief-hole.’ He’d smirked. Maybe that was going a little far, I thought, but I couldn’t keep myself from laughing all the same.
‘Right you smug fuck,’ he said as he lunged at Jez, but Jay batted him away like a moth. ‘Are you being clever?’ he spat.
‘Why, are you being stupid?’ Jez snapped back.
‘Okay, fellas, that’s enough. I think we need some time out.’ I sent Brian off with Jay to sign the Agreement, before starting to help Dal with the work on his cabin. I took Jez to one side.
‘It’s funny and that, I mean we all laughed; but he’s gone through the ringer like the rest of us. Give his little brain a break, eh?’
‘Yeah, I suppose,’ he dabbed at his split lip. ‘Stupid people should shut up more, but they’re always the loudest.’
There were now seventeen of us. Seventeen survivors up there on that old hill fort, which seemed to take on a new life as it surrendered to its ages-old duty of protecting those that fought for survival from the safety of its green plateau. Seventeen signatures on a bit of crumpled A4.
We
worked on, perfecting our building techniques, finding novel ways to cook lamb, and telling stories. One day amongst the tattered figures on the golf course I saw through my binoculars a man walking a flyblown dog carcass on a lead. None of the other stinkers were bothering him, so I assumed he was dead and not just mental. It sent shivers down me, the raw link between a man and his habits laid bare in front of me. Some of the others had laughed at him, but it made me cry in great heaving sobs. I didn’t let anyone see though, and I had found Lou who wrapped me up in her coat and squeezed me.
Late one evening, when the fire was roaring and the sound of laughter rippled through the camp, someone gave out a squeal. It wasn’t the sound of fear though – the dogs weren’t barking - it sounded like someone had seen an old friend. We tore off to find the sound and found Dawn on one of the horses by the trig pillar. She was looking north-east with binoculars, but you didn’t need any help to see what she had found.
On the horizon was a bright orange pin-prick of fire, on the black silhouette of a hill.
‘Where’s that?’ someone shouted.
‘I think it’s Steyning way. Steyning Bowl, maybe, or Bramber Castle.’ I said. We’d driven through there on our way back from Brighton on that first evening.
‘I can see people in front of it,’ gasped Dawn. We were not alone, and a day or so after that we saw another fire, further away to our north.
‘That’s definitely Chanctonbury Ring.’ I said. Chanctonbury was another, smaller hill fort, probably made at the same time as Cissbury. By day, of course, we saw nothing other than a thin wisp of smoke from each camp curling into the air, but by night we would gaze in wonder and break out into spontaneous rounds of applause for our fellow survivors, even though we knew we may never meet them.
Every new arrival seemed mostly happy to sign the code of conduct we asked them to abide by - everyone except Brian that is, who by now was really grating on everyone. Even Jenna had stopped talking to him, and frankly rubbed it in by spending a lot of her time with Jez. We had a meeting and decided the best thing was to get the bull by the horns and force them to work together, so Jay – whose plan for patrolling the ring was now in full swing - put them on the same shift, walking in opposite directions around the perimeter. True to form Jez put the effort in, but he would meet up with Brian earlier and earlier each time round due to Brian’s sluggish walking speed.
Brian had been slack during the building work too, often taking off completely to walk on his own around the Ring. He’d laughed in my face when I’d asked him to tell someone where he was going. Jay had bristled up and stood shouting down at him, purple-faced, but he’d only laughed harder. Jay, like the rest of us, was a lover not a fighter, but he could barely keep from rabbit-punching him.
One evening Dawn kneed him square in the bollocks near where the horses were tethered because he’d told her he’d ‘always wanted to fuck a Goth,’ and that Dawn might be his last chance. Dal had overheard, walked up to them, obviously taken Dawn’s side and promptly got called a paki, which was wrong on quite a few different levels. I’d told Brian not to be so spiky but he thought I’d called him a pikey, and it all got a bit heated. I had to hold back from twatting him myself.
Jez didn’t hold back from taunting him though, and would often relieve the tension with a cutting one-liner, sending Brian into fits of spitting rage as if he held the copyright on all forms of taking-the-piss. Still we made them work together, and Jez even seemed to soften towards Brian, actually sticking up for him once when he’d had a second helping from the pot, finishing the last of that evening’s meal before Dal and David had finished their shifts and eaten themselves. Of course they both insisted it wasn’t a problem, and shared a tin of beans Jez heated up in the fire for them. Jez was proving popular amongst the camp, and never seemed to let the situation weigh him down.
One day though, Brian came back from their shift alone.
‘Where’s Jez?’ Dawn asked him.
‘Oh, he got bit.’
‘What?’ I demanded. This was the first time someone had been infected after they had signed up.
‘Yeah, it was some stinky fucker over the back. I got to Jez and he was sort of laying there, white as a sheet. He’d been bit in the leg, so I…’ He made ‘chop-chop’ actions with the hand-axe he’d chosen as his weapon.
‘What, he hadn’t been eaten?’ Jay quizzed.
‘No, I scared them off, you know. I dunno, they might have come back for him by now.’ The grin had all but gone.
‘Alright Brian, you’ve done your shift. You did the right thing.’ I said. Jay shot me a glance.
‘Yeah, well it’s your rules mate, not mine.’ He sauntered off, and I turned to Jay.
‘Shall we go and have a look?’
We hiked to the north edge of the fort, saying nothing. We were eager to see for ourselves what had happened. I certainly wasn’t in any frame of mind for bullshit. I’d had very little sleep; Lou’s nightmares seemed to be getting worse and I was spending half the night up with her. She seemed too scared to drop off, and the exhaustion would often send her into sobbing fits. When we got to the back edge of the Ring we saw nothing. No stinkers, no Jez.
‘Maybe he was telling the truth.’ Jay said.
‘Well - innocent until proven guilty and all that, eh? Let’s have a gander down there.’
There were no bodies in the ditch there at the car park end, at the opposite end to the V-shaped entrance and the ‘Battle of the Stinkers’ as Jay had named it. We clambered into the dip and up onto the chalky ramparts of the outer ring, watchful for any movement, then searched along the walkway until we were practically on the easternmost side. We were about to retrace our steps when Jay saw something in a gorse bush. It was a trainer. On the end of it was Jez, upside-down and headless.
‘Well, they haven’t come back for him.’ I said.
‘What was he saying about scaring them off?’ Jay raised an eyebrow at me. ‘Have you ever seen any of them get scared off?’
‘No,’ I pursed my lips. ‘Just hungry.’
‘Where did he say he’d been bitten?’ Jay asked me.
‘In the leg, wasn’t it?’
We hauled him up onto the path. I pulled his trousers off as Jay kept watch.
‘Nothing. No bites, no scratches.’ I rubbed my eyes.
‘Right. What do we do now?’ Jay asked.
‘I need to have a little chat with Brian, I suppose.’
Jay said nothing, which usually meant he agreed. We looked for Jez’s head, and found it wedged under a thicket. Brian had really gone to town with the axe, Jez’s face was almost unrecognisable. We trudged back up the slope, pulling the decapitated Jez with his head pushed down his T-shirt. Once on top, I suggested we said nothing to the others in the camp, at least until I’d had a chat with Brian. We stashed Jez in the shade of an old tree – a yew I think – and set off back to camp with a determined stride. When we reached the quarantine pits, Jay handed me his sword.
‘Brian, can I have a word?’ I asked politely.
‘Piss. Ha ha. Will that one do?
‘No, Brian, I need to have a little chat with you. We’d best go for a walk,’ I called out where we were going to David, who did an annoying little salute. I really wasn’t in the mood for any of this. When we were out of sight, I asked Brian where he’d last seen Jez.
‘I fucking told you, round the back,’ he pointed.
‘Let’s go then. We’d like to bury him, if there’s anything left.’ I said.
‘I told you, he’s probably not there any more.’
‘Well, let’s look anyway. Satisfy my curiosity.’ I said. We walked in silence, Brian leading the way. I made sure we walked right past the spot where we’d found Jez, and I clocked Brian looking down towards the gorse bush.
‘Getting warmer?’ I asked.
‘Nah, it’s further on. Much further on,’ his voice sounded edgier.
‘Brian,’ I said.
‘Yes?’ he turned
to face me. ‘What is it now?’
‘Don’t imagine for one fucking millisecond you can get one over on me. Jez had survived whatever this mess is. He had survived. I’m going to give you a choice. Either fuck off down there to where I’m never going to see you again, or I’ll take your head off right now.’
‘Go on then you little prick,’ he said, squaring up. ‘Take my head off!’
So I did. The arterial squirt of bright fresh blood which soared away from his neck really took me by surprise.
When I got back to camp, lugging Jez over my shoulders in a fireman’s lift, word had spread. Jenna was in my face, screeching like a banshee. She soon shut up when she saw who I was carrying. I considered telling her I’d sent Brian away, but instead I told her in earshot of the others what he’d done; that I gave him a clear choice, and that I had executed him. She went pale. I didn’t hear much from her after that. No-one else said anything except Glyn, who asked if I was alright with a trembling hand on my shoulder. We buried Jez, and Patveer made up a poem for him which she recited. Dal made a cross. Dawn, Al and Lou cried. In the middle of the night I woke Jay up, told David where we were going, and trudged to the back of the Ring. We found Brian, and buried him where we lay, with no headstone. It weighed heavily on me – I’d never killed anything bigger than a rat before I extinguished Brian, but on the whole everyone was very supportive. Al said he would have done it in a flash, Lou said it was a situation I shouldn’t have been put in. Her nightmares were still bad, and she’d recently tried sleeping through the daytime, tending to the fire and doing her security shift at night. Floyd would follow her, wagging proudly with his chin up. We saw less of each other, but she slept better to the sounds of the camp’s activities. We had sex for the first time in too long, one misty morning when she was coming to bed and I was waking up. She just kissed me, lingering long and warm, and I ended up late starting work.
Breaking News: An Autozombiography Page 24