Searching For Summer: A Zombie Novel

by Midwood, Peter

  He hid the weapon behind his back, and Alison knocked on the door again. There was still no answer, so she tried the handle, but the door was locked.

  “Perhaps he’s not in,” Lenny said.

  “Good, that’ll make our job a lot easier. Lenny, break the door down.”

  “How? I’m sixty-one, not twenty-one.”

  “Take a run up and shoulder-barge it. You’ve got the weight to break it down.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  The bickering stopped when the door swung open, and the Preacher stood before them with a face like thunder. “I suspect you may be hiding something behind your back, Lenny,” he said. “So am I.”

  He swung a handgun into view and shot him in the face. Lenny’s left eye disappeared in a gelatinous red tunnel, and he dropped the pick-axe handle. His legs buckled and he fell over backwards, landing on top of it. Tentacles of blood dripped down from a scarlet patch on the wall behind him. Moses pointed the weapon at Alison. “Any final words, you interfering old crow?”

  “Let the girls go,” she said. Her bottom lip trembled, but she wanted to finish what she had come to say. “Please, Preacher, they’re only children, set them free.”

  “No,” he said and shot her in the stomach.

  She dropped to her knees, clutching the wound and looked up into the face of her killer. She saw nothing human in his eyes; they were cold, merciless and reptilian. She felt foolish for being duped by him from the outset and angry for coming to his apartment woefully unprepared. She felt bad for getting Lenny killed and worse for failing to rescue the girls. Things could have been different, she thought, with a bit less haste and a bit more planning. Moses shot her in the heart, and she thought no more.

  The Preacher dragged the two corpses through the doorway opposite his apartment (into the thousand-pound-per-night function hall) and returned to his bedroom to find Summer frantically trying to open the sliding sash window which he’d screwed shut only yesterday. “Now then, Summer,” he said, placing his gun on the bedside table. “Where were we?”

  Danny watched the van slide down the hill at a snail’s pace. It was almost brought to a halt by the twitchers in front of it. Finally, it reached the wire fence and stopped dead. Danny’s heart sank. “So much for that idea,” he said. “It was supposed to knock the bloody fence down.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Pip said. “We’ll still get your daughter back, but right now, we need to be on our way.”

  “She’s right, sir,” Simon said, joining them from his place in the Land Rover. “Look at all them things.”

  Most of the pack had lost interest in the van and were heading uphill towards the trio. “Ok, gang,” Danny said, “let’s go.”

  On the way back to their vehicle, they heard a dull twanging sound, like the strings on an un-tensioned guitar being plucked. They turned around to see Piper’s van halfway through the wire fence. The creases in the front end had cut through the lower squares of the mesh, and the slope allowed the vehicle to act as a wedge. The gap in the fence widened until eventually, the van broke through and came to a halt just beyond the fence where the ground levelled out.

  Zombies poured into the grounds of The Castle. Fragments of skin and tatters of clothing were left on the sharp ends of the broken wire and flapped in the breeze like bunting, as the horde tried to fit through the van-sized hole at once. The zombies pursuing Danny and his crew turned their backs on them and lumbered back to the pack, in search of easier and more plentiful prey. The wire mesh buckled and bowed under the pressure of hundreds of living dead, until the structure gave out and the fence snapped inwards, like floodgates admitting a deadly tide of zombies.

  22: Storming The Castle

  The last thing Paul Jenson saw was two skeletal fingers, just before they gouged his eyes out, and the last thing he felt was an excruciating pain as his jugular vein was torn open by decaying brown teeth, broken into points. The shock of this killed him, and he was oblivious to the grime-caked rotting hands tearing through the skin of his midriff, pulling apart his ribcage and plundering his innards.

  The few guards who had tried to make a stand against the invasion were already dead and in the process of having their flesh stripped to the bone by their killers. The undead horde chased those (like Paul) who ran for their lives, screaming and praying. The living were outnumbered twenty to one, and still, more zombies poured into the premises.

  “My God,” Pip said, watching two terrified spear-wielders standing back to back in a ring of zombies. “They don’t stand a chance.”

  As if to confirm her opinion, the encircling mob pounced on the hapless pair, and their brief dying screams echoed around the hillside, before being replaced by the baying and satisfied grunts of feeding twitchers. Pip looked away so she couldn’t see the creatures mutilating them, but she need not have done, sheer numbers of zombies hid the unfortunate duo from view.

  “I think we’ve seen enough,” Danny said. “It’s time we made our move.”

  “You’re not going to drive down there, surely?” Pip asked, watching another pack of zombies dismembering another pair of guards.

  “No, this is police business now. A hostage rescue situation and we’re going in through the front gates.”

  Sam and Dean watched in disbelief, as the ever-present crowd of zombies stopped snarling and pawing at The Castle gates and walked away to the right. “What the hell’s happening?” Sam said.

  Dean looked down on the shambling dead, they followed the wall away from the main entrance, paying no attention to the humans above them. For the first time, since being assigned to ingress and egress control, the gate was free from ghouls, and he felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He laughed and clapped Sam on the shoulder. “They’re going,” he said. “They’re finally going. I told you they’d get bored eventually.”

  “Go on,” Sam shouted down at them. “Piss off back to whichever grave you crawled out of.” The last zombie in line turned around and hissed up at him, lashing out with a hand missing a thumb. “You too, Fingers.”

  More guards joined them, peering through the battlements at the curious procession below, laughing and clapping as the ghouls departed. “What’s that?” a young man with bad acne said, pointing down the road. “It looks like the world’s fastest digger or something.”

  The high spirits lowered when a speeding vehicle came into view.

  “It looks like we might have a new arrival,” Sam said.

  The guards focused on the vehicle zooming towards them and saw it was a top-of-the-range Land Rover with bulldozer blades attached to the front and rear.

  “I think I’ll just go tell the Preacher about the zombies leaving,” a tall, thin Oriental man said. “He likes to be kept up to date with developments.”

  Sam glared at him, and the Chinaman looked away. Others eagerly volunteered to accompany him, as cowardice overruled Sam’s opinion of them.

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “Me too.”

  “And me.”

  “Good idea.”

  Ten guards left in total, leaving only six on the wall. All of them transfixed by the incoming vehicle speeding along like a warhead.

  “He doesn’t appear to be slowing down,” Dean said.

  “Hmm,” Sam said. “This could be trouble.”

  Summer backed into the corner of the bedroom until she could go no further. For every back-step she took, Moses took one forward, and he now stood directly in front of her. He looked into her terrified eyes, as wide and bright as searchlights, her pupils flitting about like flies inside a bottle. He tried to convey some humanity in the way he looked at her, instead of how he felt, which was like a cat before a cornered mouse. If she saw any, she didn’t show it. “It’s time to give yourself to me, Summer. Get on the bed.”

  Summer shook her head vigorously.

  “We can do this the hard way, or the easy way, but whichever you choose, it is going to happen.�
� He slid open the top drawer of a dressing table to his right and pulled out a pair of black nylon stockings. “Put these on.”

  Summer shook her head again and sobbed softly. “Please don’t make me do this, Preacher.”

  Moses stared back at her with a look that could kill. The stupid little bitch was trying his patience so much that he could feel his blood starting to boil. “It’s like this, Summer: you either put them on, or I’ll tie you to the bed with them. Now, are you going to wear them?”

  Summer made a bolt for it, leaping onto the bed and running across the silk sheets. She was about to jump off the other side when the Preacher grabbed her left ankle and yanked her flat onto her stomach. She screamed and tried to kick him with her free leg, but he grabbed that too and twisted her ankle. The immense pain made her cry out, and she gave up her struggle.

  “Be still, or I’ll break your fucking ankle. You’ll hear it snap.”

  She knew he meant it. Her game was up; there was to be no escape. With her final hopes dashed, the reality of what was about to happen hit home and she buried her face into the top sheet and wept.

  The Preacher spun her onto her back and dragged her to the top of the bed by her arms. She didn’t resist; she only turned her head away, so she didn’t have to look at him. She felt him fumbling around with her wrists above her head and knew he was tying her to the bedposts with the stockings she’d refused to wear. She claimed this act of defiance to be a victory, as small as it was. She had to cling onto something, just to know this man hadn’t completely beaten her.

  She felt the mattress dip under his weight as he laid down beside her. He took hold of her chin and turned her face towards him. Summer closed her eyes and thought of happy things. “Such beauty,” he said.

  He ran his other hand up and down her body, stopping to squeeze her small buds of breasts through the fabric of her gown. She bit down on her bottom lip to suppress a sob and became aware of his erect penis pressing against her right leg as if he was turned on by her misery. Summer felt her gown sliding up her thighs and prayed that whatever he was about to do would soon be over and wouldn’t hurt her too much.

  Zombies spread across the former golf course like a fire through a straw house. Ravaged corpses of guards littered the greens, and a trail of blood and entrails led towards the former hotel, housing the general population of the community. Any survivors fled towards the building, shouting for help as they ran. Residents came out to see what was happening and immediately ran back inside, panic-stricken. The Preacher kept all the guns locked away in his quarters, so they were unable to help their comrades, or defend themselves against the invasion. Their only hope was to barricade themselves inside the building and hope the blockade held.

  David Jacob’s lungs burned, and his legs hurt like they never had before from sprinting away from the pursuing zombies. He’d seen four of his friends torn apart by these unstoppable monsters, and he had no desire to be next, so he clutched his side stitch and ran on. He saw Frankie Clayton, a man he had come with to The Castle. The pair had survived a car crash and hid in an abandoned job centre for three weeks. They were the only two survivors of a party of nine, and they had seen some horrific things together. Neither of them ever spoke of what they had seen, but the memory was always there, looming below the surface and a bond had forged between them.

  He waved a hand above his head and tried to call Frankie’s name, but he didn’t have the breath to talk. The best he could manage was a smile as he neared his old friend and the door to safety. David’s smile died when Frankie stepped back through the oak double doors and pulled them shut.

  David ran up the two steps to the entrance, simply because he had nowhere left to go, and pulled the D-handles, even though he knew the doors would be locked. His thoughts were confirmed, and he slid to the floor sobbing. His forehead rested against the polished oak and using the last of his strength, he drummed his fists on the door. The snarls and grunts grew louder as the zombies approached, but he had no desire to face them, and he was too exhausted to run. He had resigned himself to his fate, and he didn’t have long to wait until he met it.

  The leader of the pack dropped to the floor behind him and sank its teeth into his Achilles’ tendon. Before David could scream, the following zombies fell onto his back, squashing him against the floor and driving the air out of his lungs. He was vaguely aware of being yanked to the left and teeth sinking into his right shoulder. A leathery hand grabbed at his face, and three filthy fingers probed inside his mouth. He tasted soil and rotting flesh as it fell off the invasive digits, and when a severed fingernail touched the back of his throat, he gagged. He was dragged backwards by his upper teeth while choking on his vomit and when his spine snapped at the base of his neck, he knew no more.

  “He’s not stopping,” Dean said.

  “I’ll stop him,” Sam said. “Just watch this.”

  He opened fire with the machine gun, and a five-second barrage of bullets peppered the Land Rover. The bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the front scoop and Sam side-stepped right, to aim around the obstruction. The passenger side window slid partway down, and a rifle barrel equipped with a telescopic sight appeared in the gap. There was a sound like a whip crack, and Sam jumped backwards off the wall as if somebody had yanked a rope around his waist. He landed flat on his back, still holding his weapon. Dean stared down in shock at the body of his friend, the front of his off-white shirt turning red and a stream of blood trickling out from underneath him. He looked back at the vehicle; the window was back up, and the driver was going too fast to stop at the gates.

  Danny accelerated as the vehicle approached the wrought iron gates. “Hang on,” he said.

  The three occupants of the vehicle braced themselves for impact; Simon saw Pip crossing herself and copied her. The bulldozer blade slammed into the gates flinging them wide open while the guards looked on, astounded. One of the gates came off its hinges and cartwheeled away; the other swung open one-hundred-and-eighty degrees and buckled against the wall behind it. Danny brought the Land Rover to a screeching halt and jumped out of it, to face the guards on the wall. He stood behind the protection of his vehicle, and his height allowed him to fold his arms on top of the roof.

  Pip cranked the window down a fraction and rested the barrel of the Winchester Model 70 bolt-action rifle on top of the glass. She had taken the weapon and ammo from one of her dead colleagues at the office, not knowing what make it was. Danny had identified it for her and added that the only person who could miss with it would be the fool with the money to buy it. Pip was more than impressed with its capability and felt like a sniper as she watched the guards on the wall through the scope.

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Danny said. “My name is Danny Weston, and I am here to get my daughter back and kill the man you call the Preacher. If that means I have to kill everybody here to do that, then so be it.”

  The furthermost guard on the wall snaked his hand down to the holster he wore and unclipped the leather strap securing his pistol. There was a sharp crack from inside the Land Rover, the guard screeched and toppled backwards over the wall, clutching his chest.

  “Anybody else?” Danny asked.

  One of the guards started running away, but before he had gotten anywhere, Danny drew his Glock and shot him in the back. The would-be escapist toppled forward and lay dead, with an arm and a leg dangling over the wall-top path.

  “You may think that was a cowardly deed, shooting a man in the back,” Danny said, “and you’d be right, but I didn’t know where he was heading. He may have been going for reinforcements, and I couldn’t take that chance. I don’t have time for a shoot-out, I need to free my daughter. So, if one of you three would kindly tell me where I can find this Preacher, it will save me killing two of you and torturing the lucky survivor until he tells me what I need to know.”

  “He’s in that building over there,” Dean blurted out, pointing down the road. “It used to be the clubhouse, and it’s jus
t past the gardens on the left. There’s a set of oak double doors facing a forecourt as you approach it from here; they’ll be open. Once you go inside, you’ll see a fancy marble staircase on the left; the Preacher lives upstairs. His room’s at the end of the corridor on the—”

  “That’s enough thank you, young man, you’ve been very helpful. Now I have some advice for all of you: I have just destroyed the perimeter fence, and the place is filling up with zombies as we speak. Add that to the damage done here,” he pointed to the remaining gate, hanging askew on twisted hinges, “and you should come to the conclusion that it is no longer safe to stay here. I suggest you make a break for it while you still can and try to convince anybody you come across to go with you. And just in case you’re undecided, if I find any of you still here when I return, I’ll kill you myself.”

  He got back into the Land Rover and sped off in the direction of the clubhouse. When he looked in the rear-view mirror, the top of the wall was empty.

  23: Close Call

  Bruce had been to engineering college when he was alive. After getting his degree (with honours), he had secured a job at a local glassware factory where the powers that be soon recognised his initiative and conscientiousness and made him maintenance manager. Sadly, his career (and life) ended on the same day as his promotion when he returned home from work and his four-year-old son, Oliver, bit him.

  As usual, the youngster came running down the drive to greet him, but instead of outspread arms, his son came at him baring fingers curled into claws. Bruce left the car door open and swept him off the ground, thinking him to be playing monsters, but Oliver wasn’t playing. He really was a monster, and he sank his milk teeth into his dad’s neck. Bruce screamed and pushed him away, but Oliver latched on tight and wouldn’t let go. Bruce clamped his hands around his son’s face and twisted it from side to side while forcing his head back. Eventually, Oliver came away with a clump of flesh in his mouth, a horizontal jet of blood spraying out of the hollow it had made. Bruce hurled him to the ground and staggered backwards, clutching his neck. “Oliver, what the hell’s gotten into you?”