Searching For Summer: A Zombie Novel

by Midwood, Peter

  26: Free

  Summer ran with her head down and her hands over her ears, not wanting to see or hear the things coming towards her. The Preacher followed two steps behind, firing continuously into the incoming horde. “Faster, girl,” he said, his voice ragged from running. “Once we turn this corner, we’re home and dry.”

  Summer was running as fast as she could, but she plucked a final burst of speed from a hidden reserve inside her. As she rounded the corner, she saw a black Land Rover parked outside the main entrance, and when she saw the digger blades attached to it, she just knew it had to belong to her dad. A seed of hope germinated in her heart; he could still save her from this maniac.

  The passenger-side door opened, and Simon stepped out, holding a machine gun. “Stop there, mister,” he said, “and drop that gun, or I’ll shoot you.”

  Summer ran past Simon and collapsed against the digger blade, exhausted. She turned around to face the standoff. The Preacher was leaning forward with his hands on his knees catching his breath, three meters away. He didn’t let go of his gun, and he was grinning like a wolf being threatened by two sheep.

  “Shoot him,” Summer said.

  Having regained his composure, the Preacher stood up and pointed his gun at Simon. “The safety’s on, kid,” he said. “I can see so from here.” Simon squeezed the trigger, and nothing happened. “I told you.”

  The Preacher fired, and Simon staggered backwards clutching his chest. The weapon tumbled from his grip, and he collapsed onto the block-paving between the clubhouse and the car. Summer screamed, and so did the three other girls from the harem. They had been watching through the rear window of the car, and they jumped out of the vehicle and ran back into the zombie-infested building. For a split second, Summer considered joining them, but she knew her captor wouldn’t let her go and without her, the other girls might have a chance.

  “Get in the car, Summer,” he said, confirming her thoughts. “It’s time we left.”

  Without hesitation, Summer got into the front passenger seat, but not as an act of resignation. If this were her father’s car, there would probably be a weapon in the glove compartment. She prayed there would be; this was her last chance of escape. She pulled down the drawer front and groped around inside. The compartment was empty. The Preacher opened his door, and just as he dropped down into the driver’s seat, a metal cylinder rolled into Summer’s hands. She snatched it out of the glove compartment and held it by her left leg, out of sight.

  “You’d best buckle up, girl,” the Preacher said, turning to face her, “it could be a bumpy ri—”

  Summer swung her arm up and pressed the nozzle down on top of the canister, releasing a jet of pepper spray into the Preacher’s eyes. He cried out in surprised agony as Summer waved the spray across and down his face in a Z motion, emptying the container with a blast inside his mouth. He dropped his gun into his lap, erupted into a coughing fit and slapped wildly at his streaming eyes. “You fucking bitch,” he shouted between hacking and retching. “You’re fucking dead.”

  He grabbed his gun, but as he was raising his arm, Summer slammed the canister down onto his first knuckle, pleased with the twig-snapping sound it made. He yelped and lashed out with his other hand, wafting the noxious in-car mist towards her. Instantly, her eyes stung and watered, and the back of her throat burned like she’d just gargled with hot pepper sauce. She opened the door and inhaled deeply from the fresh air that flooded in. The Preacher did the same and tried to compose himself.

  His tear-stained cheeks were red and blotchy, and a dark purple band across his eyes made him look like the Lone Ranger. His eyes bulged in their sockets, and a network of angry red lines crisscrossed the whites. Behind the injuries, Summer saw unbridled madness and hatred. He leant on the steering wheel and retched while rubbing his eyes with one hand; Summer nearly overlooked the barrel of the gun pointing towards her from inside his hunched over posture.

  At the same time as the Preacher fired, Summer threw herself out of the car into a backwards somersault. The bullet grazed the underside of her chin and cut a shallow trench through her flesh, stinging like a fire ant bite. She jumped up and slammed the door, trapping the fumes inside with her tormentor and stepped back inside the clubhouse. The Preacher clambered out of the vehicle and fired wildly in her direction. Summer had seriously impaired his vision, and the bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the brickwork to her left.

  Summer picked up the machine gun dropped by Simon, but she didn’t know how to take the safety off, or even what the safety was. The Preacher shouted a stream of obscenities between coughing fits and staggered away from the building with all the grace of the zombies that were heading towards him.

  “We can’t stay here,” Frankie said to the crowd of people before him. “All the weapons are in the gun room over in the Preacher’s quarters; we have to get to them to stand a chance against these things.” He cocked a thumb over his shoulder at the putrid faces pressed against a Georgian window. “We’re helpless with the weapons we have.” He looked around at the fifty men and women before him, armed with brush shafts, rolling pins and maintenance tools. Never had he seen such a feeble arsenal.

  There were murmurs of disapproval from the cowardly menfolk, quickly challenged by more courageous women. Frankie looked at the window behind him while petty squabbles broke out. Blackened tongues licked the glass, and skeletal fingers tried to break through with a constant rat-a-tat-tat. That noise alone could drive a man to insanity. Frankie had been a professional football referee before he retired, so decision making came naturally to him, and he had made up his mind that he could no longer stay here and do nothing but wait to die.

  “Enough,” he snapped. “The fight is outside, not in here. I am sick of running and hiding from these abominations of nature. It’s time we reclaimed The Castle as our own. Now, I’m going to cross the greens, get those damned weapons and take back what is rightfully ours. Who’s with me?”

  A roar of approval followed a show of hands and Frankie’s band were waved off by the womenfolk as they left the safety of the hotel and stepped out into zombie land.

  Danny had to admire the Preacher’s shooting; the man had killed over twenty zombies. Unfortunately, his marksmanship would be his downfall; he had left a trail that was ridiculously easy to follow. Danny’s heart thudded against his ribcage in double time, and his legs ached along with the stitch in his side. Every laboured breath inhaled hurt the back of his throat, but he ran on fuelled by rage and the thought of holding Summer in his arms again.

  A cacophony of growls, snarls and hisses followed him along, but a quick glance over his shoulder confirmed he was safe from his pursuers. It was the zombies approaching from the right that gave him cause for concern; the frontrunners were less than five meters away. He stopped before the corner of the building and shot down the front row of ten zombies coming at him laterally and used the break from running to catch his breath. He looked over his shoulder and shot the two closest ghouls behind him. He inhaled deeply in an attempt to steady his racing heart and turned the corner.

  Frankie tried to blot out the screams coming from behind him as he ran for his life. He hadn’t realised there were so many zombies in the grounds; he thought there was just one pack surrounding the hotel. His wrong assumption had cost some of his followers their lives, and their dying wails filled his ears. He had appointed himself as their leader and led them straight to their deaths.

  As soon as they had set foot outside the hotel, zombies had attacked them. He and his men had fought valiantly and bludgeoned the ghouls to death with their makeshift weapons. Elated by the small victory, they had pressed on towards the clubhouse, but when Frankie’s army had turned onto the greens, they saw how massively the zombies outnumbered them.

  Over a hundred zombies surrounded the building they had just left, cutting them off from the possibility of retreat and leaving Frankie no option but to lead his men forwards. Frankie beckoned his depleted squad onward,
and they followed close behind him, more out of necessity than choice, dodging around zombies and recoiling from reaching arms. As the men passed, the ghouls turned around and staggered after them. Whatever the mindless creatures lacked in agility they made up for in obstinacy.

  Up ahead, their destination came into view, and through a gap in the undead army, Frankie saw a black Land Rover. Instantly, his plan changed. Sod everybody else, he would be driving out of here, alone.

  A little girl holding a machine gun was backing away from a ghoul coming out of the clubhouse doors. It was holding one of the makeshift spears, previously used by the fence-patrollers, and the girl was struggling to fire the weapon. Another two steps and the creature would be upon her. As an added bonus, Frankie would take her weapon.

  Summer was the first thing Danny saw when he turned the corner and his heart filled with relief and joy. The next thing he saw was a zombie limping towards her, holding a javelin. Boosted by the sight of his daughter, Danny raced forwards. “Summer,” he shouted, and she whirled around to face him, smiling despite her predicament. “Get back.”

  She skipped two steps backwards, as lithe as a ballet dancer and her predator dropped the lance and lunged forward, a complete antithesis of its prey. Satisfied with the distance between them, Danny fired twice, the first bullet hit the zombie in the neck and the second took the top of its head off.

  Summer dropped the gun and sprinted towards him with outstretched arms. Danny ran to greet her, and she leapt into his arms, he held her tight and twirled her around in a dance of joy. For a fleeting second, the world-gone-bad was forgotten, it was just the two of them, father and daughter, expressing their love for each other, and the pair of them savoured the moment. Danny felt Summer’s tears against his neck, and he allowed her a moment to release them while suppressing his own. He gave her a final squeeze and gently uncoupled her arms from around his neck. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  She wanted to hold his hand, but Danny ushered her in front of him. “Lead the way, darling,” he said. “I’ll take care of business.”

  He fired a succession of bullets into the creatures coming at them from across the green and Summer trotted back to the Land Rover. Danny spotted Simon on the floor and raced past his daughter to get to him. “Simon,” he said, dropping to his knees beside the boy.

  Summer appeared next to him. “The Preacher shot him,” she said, teary-eyed. “He was trying to rescue me.”

  Danny tore open Simon’s blood-covered shirt to inspect the wound. Beneath the clothing, the boy’s ribcage rose and fell with the slightest of movement. A small hole below his right shoulder gave Danny the hope he needed. “Come on, my young friend,” Danny said, stroking the boy’s face. “Come back to us. There are people here who need you.”

  Simon’s eyes fluttered open, and he smiled. Danny returned the gesture. “Welcome back, Simon, you’re going to be alright, I promise you.” He bunched up the remains of the boy’s T-shirt and held it against the bullet hole, Simon winced and slipped back into unconsciousness. Danny lifted him onto the back seats of the Land Rover and sat him up. Summer climbed in after him and held the makeshift bandage against his shoulder. “Summer, where’s Pip and the other girls?”

  “The girls ran past me into the house, and I never saw them when I went in because of all the monsters. I don’t know who Pip is, though.”

  Danny remembered Summer had never seen her. “She came here with Simon and me, to get you out. I need to find her and the girls, and then we’re getting out of here. You take care of Simon; I won’t be long. Make sure you lock the doors.”

  He stepped back to close the door. “Be careful, Dad.”

  “Always,” he said.

  He picked up the machine gun his daughter had dropped and flicked off the safety catch. He checked the magazine, saw it was fully loaded and then fired a spray of bullets into the ever-approaching zombies. The front row fell like puppets with their strings cut. He fired another burst into the ghouls coming through the doorway and stepped over their bodies into the building.

  Frankie heard the gunfire and dodged through the ghouls via a route that kept the shooter in sight. He saw the man go through the doorway into the clubhouse and was astounded by his stupidity. He had just left his vehicle, in which he could have driven away to safety, but instead, he’d gone into a building overrun with zombies. The mind boggled, but Frankie didn’t mind the man’s choice of actions at all. He was about to steal his ride.

  27: In the Land Rover

  Moses walked briskly away from his former residence and that little bitch, Summer. His vision was so badly affected that he daren’t run, for fear of bumping into something or tripping over a body. Steady but sure was the way forward, and he made positive steps towards the garage just beyond the clubhouse. Inside it was a Kawasaki 900 Ninja, and Moses had kept it primed, so it was ready to ride in case of an emergency. And if this wasn’t an emergency, he didn’t know what was.

  A man in his fifties had ridden it into The Castle, but after two days, he had wanted to leave. Moses had escorted him to the garage where the man thanked him for his hospitality, and as he turned to mount his bike, Moses had stabbed him in the back with a nine-inch kitchen knife, concealed in one of the baggy sleeves of his white robe. On his next excursion, Piper had disposed of the biker’s body, and Moses set about equipping the speed machine for the modern zombie-riddled world. He attached a holstered rifle, fully loaded with spare ammo in the gun sleeve pocket, and some saddlebags filled with emergency supplies. All brought in by the ever-resourceful Piper.

  He would have smiled at his hindsight had it not hurt so much to move his face. Just before he made his escape, he would kill the troublesome little bitch that had caused him so much pain. Ideally, he would like to have taken Summer somewhere private and tortured her, before finally giving her the fucking she deserved, but there wasn’t time for that. He would simply shoot out the wheels on her meddling daddy’s car and leave them for the zombies.

  When Danny stepped back through the clubhouse doors for the second time that day, he had a feeling of deja vu. Zombies still populated the house, some going up and down stairs, others shambling around the entrance hall and first-floor landing. He spotted the splintered handrail on the first floor and assumed the broken bodies of the ghouls slithering towards him on their stomachs were a result of the fall from height.

  He blasted the machine gun into them, cutting a path to the spot below the hole in the railing. Four of the creatures were laid flat with their faces buried inside Pip’s torso. Danny ran over and threw the vile things off his companion. He roared in anger and fired until there was nothing left of them but mush. He knelt beside Pip and saw the gun in her hand and the bullet hole in her head. “Oh no,” he said. “I’m sorry for getting you into this, Pip, and although they mean nothing now, you have my heartfelt thanks. I couldn’t have done it without you.” He swept a hand down her face to close her eyes.

  He got to his feet and opened fire on the zombies, spraying his weapon from left to right, dropping everything in his path. He stomped over to the bottom of the stairs and fired up into the descending ghouls, causing a landslide of tumbling corpses. He thought about running upstairs and shooting those on the landing, but the sound of muffled screams stopped him. He cocked his head to one side and tried to locate the source of the noise. Snarls and growls of frantic zombies drew Danny down the side of the stairs.

  Four ghouls were scratching at a narrow door, almost invisible in the oak panelling of the staircase. They stopped when Danny approached and scuttled towards him, hissing. He dispatched them all with a machine gun blast and yanked the door open. Partially hidden behind an upright vacuum cleaner and a mop bucket, three terrified girls screamed in unison. One of the girls thrust the mop handle at him, and another threw a tin of shoe polish. It bounced off Danny’s chest and opened when it hit the floor.

  Danny bent down, and upon seeing his face, the girls swamped him, all three of the
m trying to embrace him at once. “Whoa, ladies,” he said. “As glad as I am to see you too, it’s time for us to get out of here.”

  “What about the lady who saved us?” one of them asked.

  “She’s already in a better place,” Danny said and led them out of the building for the final time.

  Summer knelt on the back seats with one arm around Simon and the other holding the balled-up shirt against his wound. She was doing her best to ignore the staring sallow faces pressed up against the glass, inches away from her. Simon was still drifting in and out of consciousness, and he blurted out some gobbledegook, making Summer jump. “Easy, Simon,” she said. “Get some rest; there’s nothing to see here. You’re perfectly safe. Dad’ll be back soon, and we’ll be out of here.”

  A loud bang on the window behind her made her look over her shoulder to see a monster in a nightdress stabbing a javelin against the glass. It must have seen the perimeter guards at work and was copying their actions. The point of the javelin hit again and glanced upward over the roof, but the resilient monster wouldn’t give up. Summer sang Simon a song to blot out the noises of metal hitting the glass behind her, hands pounding on the roof above her and the groans of the living dead all around her.

  Frankie was within fifty meters of the Land Rover and imagined himself speeding away to a new life somewhere safe. He was too exhausted to run any further and decelerated into a trot, puffing and panting as he looked over his shoulder for his men. They were right behind him, which was good because he would need them as bait to lure the zombies away from the car. The twitchers would follow them when they went into the clubhouse for the guns, and in their absence, he would simply drive off and leave them. It was a foolproof plan, what could go wrong?