Rain

by Shaun Harbinger

  He took a glance out of the window then turned his face back to us. “He was dead but still trying to attack people. He managed to bite a nurse and a paramedic. Probably already infected people on his street before they took him to hospital.

  “By Saturday lunchtime, the police were overrun with emergency calls. People being attacked on the street. Loved ones suddenly taking ill.”

  He shrugged. “You can guess the rest. It’s a virus. It spreads itself by making the host bite the uninfected. It’s like one of those late-night films. Who’d have thought they’d have hit the nail on the head when it came to the end of the world?” He shook his head as if in disgust.

  “The world?” Lucy asked. “Is it really the world?”

  He looked at her and nodded. “That doctor wasn’t the only person coming out of India on that flight. There were other flights that flew from there all over the world before the country’s lights went out. The virus has gone worldwide.”

  Even though I already knew something terrible had happened to society, having it confirmed made me feel sick. I tried to imagine the chaos and panic spreading across the world, through all the cities, through every neighbourhood, every street.

  “What about survivors?” I asked, remembering the addition to the emergency broadcast.

  “We’re doing all we can,” Brand said grimly. “The hospitals are under military command. We’ve set up checkpoints along all major traffic routes to try and contain the virus in certain areas. We’re not winning the battle. The infected are a big problem. They move slowly but they’re bloody determined. And they move in groups. So if you shoot one there are ten more still coming at you. We’re trying to keep the survivors safe while also fighting the nasties. It’s a losing battle. Especially when the survivors you save have a nasty habit of turning into nasties themselves.”

  “They’re here,” Cartwright said, peering out through the window.

  “Everybody keep quiet,” Brand whispered.

  I could hear shuffling outside, movement in the grass, Then a heavy set of footsteps sounded on the wood of the porch and I felt adrenaline pumping through my body. I wanted to run but there was nowhere to run to.

  Another set of footsteps joined the first and the two nasties lumbered along the porch. A bang on the door made me jump. It sounded like a fist landing heavily on the wood.

  A pause then another bang.

  Then another.

  Cartwright whispered, “I count seven of them out there.”

  “There are some around the back as well,” Brand replied.

  As if to prove him correct, a heavy fist landed on the back door.

  Knock knock.

  “Can they get in?” Lucy whispered.

  Brand shook his head. “They’re testing for ways into the house but they aren’t intelligent enough to combine their strength to break the doors down.”

  Something hit the window at the back of the house and we all jumped. Another blow to the glass made it shudder in the frame.

  Brand positioned himself so he faced the window, assault rifle ready in case the thing outside broke through.

  As they pounded on the doors and windows, Lucy looked at me with fear in her eyes. “I can’t take much more of this.”

  I put a comforting arm around her shoulder.

  “Do they know we’re in here?” Mike fidgeted nervously by the fireplace. He looked like he might actually run out of the house and into the mountains. His body trembled with unspent adrenaline and his eyes darted around the room every time one of those things banged on the house.

  “Who knows?” Brand shrugged. “They probably know that people live in houses so there might be people inside this one. If they don’t get in and we don’t make a noise, they should move on. They respond to movement and sound. If they don’t see or hear anything that attracts their attention, they go elsewhere.”

  We sat there in the glow of the firelight while the zombies shuffled around the house and tested the doors and windows. We probably sat like that for half an hour but it seemed like an eternity. When the banging and pounding stopped, Cartwright and Brand still didn’t touch the curtains in case the nasties were still in the area.

  When Brand finally looked out, he said, “They’re gone.”

  The entire room breathed a sigh of relief.

  Brand pulled back the curtains to let light spill into the room. “Now, how about some food? There must be something in that kitchen.”

  “I’ll see what there is,” Lucy said, getting up.

  “I’ll come with you.” I got to my feet then froze when I heard a sound on the window.

  Brand laughed. “You scaredy-cat, it’s just the rain.”

  The sky opened and heavy droplets of rain spattered against the glass; in the distance, thunder rumbled.

  “Typical Welsh weather,” Cartwright murmured.

  “Yeah, but it gave our lad here a fright.” Brand laughed again and Cartwright joined him.

  Following Lucy into the kitchen, I tried to ignore the laughter. We had all just sat here hiding from a bunch of zombies so it was no wonder I felt on edge. I was still coming down from an adrenaline high.

  Lucy rummaged through the cupboards and found pasta. Placing it onto the kitchen counter, she searched in another cupboard and brought out two jars of sauce. There was a wood-burning stove sitting in the corner but also a modern gas cooker on one wall. I took two saucepans from the wall where they hung from metal hooks and filled one of them with water before placing it on the burner and turning on the gas. The igniter sparked and the gas lit with blue flame, heating the water. I found a salt shaker and added a few grains to the pan.

  Outside, the rain came down heavier, lashing against the house from a dark grey sky. The view from the kitchen window showed open grassy fields leading to the mountains.

  “What are we going to do, Alex?” Lucy placed the pasta into the boiling pan of water.

  “What can we do except try to survive?”

  “We can’t stay in this house forever.” She stirred the pasta with a fork.

  “Where else can we go?”

  “What about our families? You have a brother, don’t you? And your parents are still alive?”

  They were the last time I checked but I didn’t hold out much hope now. “Yeah, I have a brother. Joe. He’s two years older than me and when we were growing up he was a pain in the ass, but we get on much better now that we don’t live in the same house.”

  I didn’t realize it at the time but when I was younger, Joe looked out for me. A lot. As a geek, I got pushed around in school, made fun of by the other kids, avoided by most of the girls.

  I found out a few years after leaving school that Joe had gotten into a few scrapes on my behalf, including a fight that saw him taking on the school bully Derek Green. I remembered Joe coming home with a black eye and bruises but he never told me until we were both adults that he had fought with Green that day because the bully made a remark about me. I didn’t even hear him say it but Joe went wading in to defend me.

  I prayed to all the gods in heaven that Joe was still alive somewhere, surviving this shit. It didn’t seem right for me to be still alive if Joe were dead. He was tough and I was weak. He was successful in life but I was mediocre.

  “Don’t you want to know what happened to him?” Lucy asked.

  “Of course I do. But what can I do about that right now? It’s not like I can just go to his house and say, ‘Hey, Joe, what do you think of all this zombie stuff?’ while he makes me a cup of tea. He won’t be there. I just hope he’s with our parents. They lived quite close. Maybe Joe had time to get to their house before all the virus stuff went too crazy.”

  “We’re going to have to find our families sometime,” she said, looking out of the window at the rain.

  “Yes, but we also have to stay alive. We’re safe here.”

  She stared at the stormy landscape. “For now. What happens when those… nasties… realize we’re in here?”
<
br />   “That’s not going to be a problem,” Brand said from the doorway. “You can’t stay here. Why do you think Cartwright and I are here? We’re doing a sweep to gather the remaining uninfected survivors for the Survivors Camp at Brecon.”

  “But we don’t want to go to a Survivors Camp,” I said. I had a problem with authority and the thought of being herded into a military camp with a load of other people, some of whom could be infected, sounded worse than trying to survive alone.

  “You don’t have a choice,” Brand said. “We’re in charge now. The government has declared a state of emergency. Britain is controlled by the military. Don’t worry, there’s a checkpoint on the main road. We’ll get you there safely. I hear the camps aren’t too bad.”

  “I’m not going to any camp,” I said.

  “We can’t have you running about out here. Look at you. You’ll get turned in no time, then it’s one more nasty for us to deal with.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  He looked at me with a hard stare and shook his head. “No, you won’t. Either we escort you civilians to the checkpoint or we take you there at gunpoint. It makes no difference to us.” He looked at Lucy and winked. “How’s that food coming along, gorgeous?”

  “It’ll be ready in ten minutes,” she said, turning to the stove and stirring the pot so she didn’t have to look at him.

  “Excellent.” He went back to the living room.

  Lucy looked at me and whispered, “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know.” What chance did we have against two armed Special Forces soldiers? If we tried to run, they would shoot us. As far as they were concerned, we were dead out here anyway. They wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. If we went with them, we would be trapped in a military-run camp with hundreds of other survivors. A concentration of people like that would be too big an attraction for the zombies to ignore.

  One thing I knew: the camp would mean death for us all.

  We had to take our chances surviving on our own wits. If a steady diet of zombie movies and books had taught me anything, they had taught me that the military and the government were fallible. Eventually, they would get everyone killed either through ignorance or through over-confidence in their own abilities. I didn’t want to get killed just because some organization made a fatal mistake while my life was in their hands.

  If I was going to die, it would be on my own terms.

  I went over to the key hooks where we had found the house keys. Hanging there was a set of keys with a leather Land Rover key tag attached to them. I took them from the hook and placed them in my back pocket.

  Lucy saw what I was doing and nodded.

  I nodded back.

  The keys were a secret shared between us.

  We were getting out of here.

  six

  The meal tasted good. The tomato sauce was infused with garlic, peppers and herbs and Lucy found some cheese in the fridge which we melted on the pasta. The kitchen was filled with the aroma of Italian sauce. As the six of us sat around the table eating, we were silent. The only sound was the rain hitting the roof and windows.

  I was hungry and the food helped curb the gnawing in my belly. I didn’t want to talk, I needed to think. How were we going to get away from the soldiers while we had the chance? Only Lucy and I knew about the Land Rover keys in my pocket. I wanted to tell Mike and Elena but there was no way I could do that without Brand and Cartwright overhearing.

  When we were all done, every scrap of pasta had been eaten. Brand pushed his chair back and stood up. He looked at Cartwright. “Right, we need to get these civvies to the checkpoint.”

  Cartwright nodded and wiped tomato sauce from his lips with a napkin.

  “We’re OK as we are, man,” Mike said.

  Brand sighed. “I already had this conversation with your friend here. You’re civilians. You have to go to the Survivors Camp. Leave fighting the zombies to us big boys.”

  “Maybe we’ll be safe there,” Elena said.

  “See, your girlfriend’s got some sense. Now, let’s go.”

  My mind raced for a way to escape. We couldn’t just make a run for it, we’d have no chance. Brand would gun us down before we reached the back door.

  We all stood solemnly, like prisoners of war about to be taken for execution.

  After we had our jackets and rucksacks on, Brand looked us over.

  “It’s about a mile to the main road,” he said, “so stick with us. Don’t get any ideas about running away because I will kill you. If you’re not going to the camp, you’re just another nasty as far as I’m concerned. Cartwright, have a look out of the window and see if any of our dead friends have come back.”

  Cartwright went into the living room and glanced out. “Just rain and mountains out there.”

  Brand nodded. “You lead the way and I’ll bring up the rear.”

  Going over to the front door, Cartwright unlocked it and stepped out onto the porch.

  And all hell broke loose.

  He took two steps over the threshold, rifle pointed ahead of him, and was about to step from the covered porch into the rain when a shape lunged out from beside the door. Cartwright turned, his face a mask of surprise.

  The shape was a zombie. A hiker dressed in hiking gear and with a backpack slung over his shoulders. He roared as he stepped towards Cartwright, his arms outstretched.

  Cartwright spun on his heels, firing point blank into the zombie’s head. Blood and brains blew over the porch and the hiker dropped backward.

  But as soon as he fell, four more took his place.

  Two old women, one of them dressed in a white bathrobe which fell open as she lurched forward, showing me more of her blue mottled flesh than I wanted to see, and two young men who looked like they were farmers judging by their beards and flannel shirts, fell onto Cartwright, dragging him across the porch by his boot.

  Brand jumped out through the doorway and started firing in three-round bursts, his teeth gritted as he took aim and fired. His training made his movements almost automatic.

  He grabbed Cartwright’s jacket and pulled him back inside.

  “Shut the door!” he shouted. “There are more of them out there!”

  Mike slammed the door shut and locked it.

  “They were out there waiting for us,” Brand said, shocked. “They were fucking waiting for us!”

  Cartwright sat propped against the stairs. Blood oozed from his calf. He stared at the floor as if in a trance.

  Brand saw the wound and cursed. He tore a strip of fabric from Cartwright’s torn combat trousers and tied it above the wound. “It’s gonna be OK, Dave,” he muttered. “It’s gonna be OK.”

  “They bit me,” Cartwright said simply. “I got bit. It hurts.”

  A heavy thump sounded against the front door.

  Then another.

  A barrage of banging assaulted the flimsy wood. It sounded like they were throwing their bodies at the door, trying to break in.

  Brand stood and wrenched the door open, sending a spray of bullets out through the doorway. Two more zombies fell. Behind them, at least a dozen more clawed at Brand. He fired into the mass of rotting flesh, his roar of anger louder than the sound of the assault rifle as it spat bullets.

  He closed the door again, leaning his back against it, breathing hard.

  The banging started again.

  Cartwright’s eyes were closed, his head drooping.

  Brand looked at his companion and something inside him seemed to snap. He pulled the door open again and began firing.

  I took the others into the kitchen. “We need to get out of here. Brand is going to get us all killed.”

  In the doorway, Brand was kicking and screaming at the zombies, sending hailstorms of bullets into their rotted flesh.

  A movement at the foot of the stairs caught my attention. Cartwright twitched, raised his head. His skin had changed and taken on a blue hue. The veins in his neck and face stood out lik
e dark purple gnarled branches. His eyes were yellow, his glare hateful.

  I tried to shout out to Brand but it was too late. Cartwright was on him, pushing the soldier out onto the porch even as he sunk his teeth into his neck.

  Brand screamed.

  His rifle clattered to the ground among the shuffling feet of the zombies that surrounded him.

  They pulled him down, hungry mouths gnashing, nails clawing.

  Some of them looked in our direction, left their prey and stumbled forward into the house.

  We ran to the back door and unlocked it. It opened onto a grassy area beside the house. It looked empty. The only sound was the hissing of the rain.

  Mike went out first. He turned towards the back of the house.

  “No,” I said. “The Land Rover. I’ve got the keys.” I dug into my back pocket and grabbed them.

  Mike changed direction and headed for the front of the house. We followed. My brain screamed at me to run away from the zombies but if we really wanted to escape, we needed the vehicle. Running blindly into the mountains would only get us into more trouble. If we had the Land Rover, we could travel faster and we had some protection.

  Mike went around the side of the Land Rover and ducked down, waiting for us. I ran for the driver’s door and pressed the unlock switch on the key fob. The doors clicked open.

  We slipped our rucksacks off and piled in. I got behind the wheel and fumbled the key into the ignition. Only when the engine had roared into life did I risk a glance at the porch. The nasties watched us with their yellow eyes but they didn’t come for us. Lying at their feet, I saw the remains of Sergeant Brand and I felt acidic bile rise in my throat. Looking away, I reversed the Land Rover away from the house and spun it round so we faced the dirt track that led to the road. I put the windscreen wipers on at full speed. They sluiced the water from the screen, giving me a rain-smeared view of the track and the forest on either side.

  The fence we had climbed over earlier was broken down in places, the wood splintered like broken bones.

  I put the Rover into first gear and we drove out of the farm.

  On either side of us, zombies stood in the trees, their angry eyes watching us as we passed.