The Undead the Second Week Compilation Edition Days 8-14

by RR Haywood

  ‘What are they all staring at?’ I whisper through the side of my mouth.

  ‘Us. You,’ Dave says bluntly.

  I make a point of nodding at a few of the people as we pass, they nod back and we get a few waves too. Reaching the office we find it already packed out and squeeze into the back of the room. Well Clarence squeezes and we just follow in his wake.

  ‘Howie!’ Ted’s voice booms out and the crowded room melts back to show Ted striding forward with his hand held out.

  ‘Ted!’ I greet the man and grasp his hand; he pulls me in for a hug and pats my back in a manly fashion.

  Looking round I see Sergeant Hopewell, Terri and Jayne are here too and I smile at them, genuinely pleased to see them. Then I remember Steven and a sudden feeling of guilt passes through me. Here I am walking in like a prick and smiling after they’ve lost one of their team. The look must have translated on my face because they move forward and surround us.

  ‘I’m so sorry about Steven…’ I start explaining, looking round at their faces.

  ‘We heard,’ Sergeant Hopewell cuts in, ‘but he made a choice Howie. It was his choice to go with you.’

  ‘I know but…’

  ‘No buts, Steven was a wonderful man and he will be remembered. We will honour him and everyone else we’ve lost but now is not the time to dwell. We can’t ever expect to get through something like this and not suffer loss,’ she steps back and looks round at the room at large, ‘we’ve all lost, and we’ll lose more but now we have work to do, lots of work to do.’

  Her tone sets the mood and makes it known this is about business. The lines on her face look deeper, bags under her eyes too. She still wears her police sergeant uniform; it even looks clean and pressed. Her shoes are shiny too. I glance over and see Ted is the same. Smart uniform and clean shoes. Clean shaven too. Maintaining standards in the face of such adversity but it’s good to see.

  ‘How’s Tom?’ Terri asks quietly.

  ‘He’s great, he’s outside getting our gear prepped with the others. He fits in well, fights like a lion,’ I reply.

  ‘If we don’t get to see him say hi from us,’ the normally quiet Jane cuts in quickly.

  ‘Yeah course I will, but you can see him once we’re done here.’

  ‘Hello Howie,’ a strong female voice sounds from behind me. I turn to see Kelly stood there with a tight smile.

  ‘Kelly, good to see you again,’ she takes my hand in a grip as firm as Ted’s.

  ‘You too, glad you’re back safely.’

  ‘How’s it been here?’ I ask.

  ‘ORDER PLEASE,’ Sergeant Hopewell shouts from the end of the room. We look round to see her holding a clipboard and staring round at the room. The muted conversations die out just as Chris walks in.

  ‘Sorry, have I missed anything,’ he squeezes through to join Sergeant Hopewell at the end of the room.

  ‘No, we’re just starting,’ Sergeant Hopewell replies.

  ‘Make way please,’ Doc Roberts walks in and instead of politely squeezing through he simply shouts and barks everyone to move. ‘Right, let’s get on with it shall we, got a lot to do.’ He blusters.

  ‘Right. Mr Howie and his group got back safely last night,’ Sergeant Hopewell starts off and I wince inwardly at being called Mr Howie in a room full of people. Not just people but doctors, engineers and police officers.

  ‘Chris has done a bloody hard job while we’ve all been away and I understand you’ve appointed Kelly to sort the outside area out?’ She asks, looking first to Chris and then to Kelly.

  ‘I did,’ Chris nods, seemingly comfortable in front of the people watching him.

  ‘I think if everyone is in agreement, we’ll have a quick round robin so we know where we all are, Chris do you want to start?’ I catch a look on Dave’s face. This is quite possibly the first meeting of this type that he has ever seen. Instead of just someone giving him a blunt spoon and telling him to invade another country.

  ‘Well,’ Chris steps forward, a gesture to make sure everyone is looking at him, ‘Kelly has taken over getting the flatlands sorted out, and she’s also stepped up to head the engineering contingent amongst us. New structures, buildings, anything of that nature will go to Kelly and her team. Doctor Roberts who you all know, he heads the medical facilities. Roger – you all know Roger, he was the curator here before…well…before it happened. Roger has given them the best rooms to use. The cleanest and driest and I think we all agree the medical people should have those rooms. We’ll also be sorting out a hospital area but we need supplies…’

  ‘Yes,’ Doc Roberts interrupts, ‘we need medicines, anti-biotics, bandages…’

  ‘Doc, we’ll come to that in a minute, please just hang on,’ Chris smoothly moves on, ‘We’ve got tent city out there at the moment which is fine now while the weather is good…’

  ‘It’s not good, it’s bloody sweltering,’ a voice calls out to a few chuckles.

  ‘Well at least it’s not cold and raining,’ Chris keeps going, ‘we can use the tents for now but eventually we’ll have to look for more permanent structures. Inside the fort, we’ve got fresh running water and we’re bottling what we can in case it runs dry. Food, we’ve got plenty at the moment but we also have a lot of people to feed and more turning up every day so we need more food supplies. Weapons, we’ve still got shotguns and plenty of ammunition for them but they’re no good for range. Howie brought us back some ammunition and assault rifles so that secures us for a while, but as with the food, we’ll need more. Briefly that covers it, Kelly?’ He hands over to the engineer.

  ‘Thanks Chris, starting with the outside. The grounds are ruined. I know there was talk of using them to plant crops but with the amount of blood and bits of bodies soaked into the ground it’s just not feasible. The infected blood from those things is in the ground, now I’m not a doctor and maybe Doctor Roberts can say otherwise, but I’m not comfortable with eating food grown in soil soaked with so much infected blood,’ murmurs of agreement sound out, ‘but that is something we’ll have to look at when we can. The bodies are still being cleared away but we need more fuel to burn them. We’ve been stacking them in the housing estate for now but they need burning before they spread disease. As for the inside, my team will help with whatever is needed. We’ve got engineers, mechanics, electricians and plumbers; we’ve got all sorts so between us we should muddle through for now.’

  ‘Thank you Kelly,’ Sergeant Hopewell speaks up, ‘Doctor Roberts?’

  ‘Thank you Sergeant. We can function as basic field triage at this stage. We can perform basic surgical operations but that’s about it. Howie and Chris managed to get some of my research equipment from my hospital in London and that’s still waiting to be set up. But we need power, fuel, generators, we need everything we can get out hands on. We need nurses too, or anyone with more than a basic knowledge of first aid…’

  ‘You’ll have to make do with basic first aid,’ Sergeant Hopewell cuts in, ‘we’ve checked everyone and already sent the medically trained people to you.’

  ‘It’s not enough,’ the doctor retorts.

  ‘Then train them because we don’t have anymore,’ the sergeant snaps back.

  ‘Well we don’t have any choice do we. Right, well send me the basic first aiders then. They’ll have to learn as we go. Supplies. I spoke to Howie last night and told him what we need. My team have drawn a list up of the essentials but we need everything. Find a hospital and strip it clean…’

  ‘You said about chemists too,’ I inquire.

  ‘That’s my bag,’ a smart looking man steps forward, neatly trimmed hair and moustache. ‘I’m a pharmacist, so I agreed to deal with that. But it’s the same as Doctor Roberts said; we need everything you can get. If you find a chemist then bring everything back with you.’

  ‘Okay,’ I reply wondering just how much stuff they think we can carry.

  ‘Guards and fort security is being handled by Ted,’ Sergeant Hopewell carries st
raight on.

  ‘Yep,’ Ted nods, ‘we got enough guards and we’re going to do weapons training every day. There’s a few ex-army folks still with us so we’re getting it sorted. We got a full rota of guards on the walls and the gates, those archers are bloody good. We’re getting some training done with them too and they asked me to tell you they need more bows and arrows,’ he looks at me.

  ‘Of course they do,’ I nod back.

  ‘Don’t worry Mr Howie, we’ve got lists prepared in order of priority,’ the Sergeant smiles fleetingly. ‘Right, well I think it’s your turn now anyway…’ she looks at me.

  ‘Right…well bloody hell. What do you want to know?’ Caught off guard a little as I was so absorbed in the things being said.

  I start off giving a brief outline of what happened once we left the women and children on the Isle of Wight. The fight we had overnight leading up to Dave shooting Darren with our last remaining bullet,’ cheering breaks out in the room at the news of Darren being killed and questions get thrown in before Sergeant Hopewell brings them back to order. I run through the naval supply ship and mention that might be worth a re-visit. Then I explain about the council estate and the compound full of youths run by Maddox. That elicits more questions and between Clarence and I we try to answer everyone. We even ask Doctor Roberts to spare someone to send over so they can be checked medically.

  As I finish I look round at the looks of awe coming towards the three of us stood in the middle of the room. One giant, one small quiet man and a supermarket manager.

  ‘So your team is happy to go back out?’ Kelly asks, breaking the silence.

  ‘Of course, but how are we going to bring all that stuff back? We’ll need lorries, vans, drivers, directions and maps…’

  ‘We can get those,’ Sergeant Hopewell says quickly, ‘we’ve been preparing this morning. We’ve plenty of big vans ready to go out and we’ve got volunteers to drive them too.’

  ‘Quick runs with less people will be safer and easier,’ Clarence says, ‘we should go for one place, get the goods and bring it back then go back out…too many vehicles and too many people will make it far harder and slow it down.’

  ‘Good point,’ I nod, ‘we can have the Saxon out front and then on guard action, the lads can secure the entrance which leaves a few of us to clear the building and get loaded. Ted…we’ll need some more people to help us, can you spare anyone?’

  ‘We’ll sort that,’ Chris answers for him, ‘Ted can get a few of his guards so you have people with weapons experience and we’ll get a few able bodies to help move the gear.’

  ‘Good, as soon as you’re ready then,’ I nod round at the faces.

  ‘One more quick thing,’ Sergeant Hopewell adds, stopping everyone as they turn to leave, ‘we’ve got questions coming in about the burials and ceremonies to honour those we’ve lost.’

  ‘Right?’ I ask slightly confused.

  ‘We’ve got many different religions within the fort, Christians, Muslims, Hindu, Sikh and they all lost people, we have to consider how we’re going to do it.’

  ‘Do what?’ I ask.

  ‘Well how are they going to worship? Do we have separate places for each religion? We’ve got Muslims asking about prayer times and Christians wanting to bury their dead. There’s all sorts of religious implications if the bodies aren’t dealt with within certain time frames.’

  ‘Dealt with? What do you mean dealt with? We burn them. We burn all of them together. Frankly, and I don’t care who this offends, but I couldn’t give a shit about religion right now. People can worship how they want, they can pray to whoever they want but survival comes first. We’re not giving any ground to any religion.’

  ‘Who are you to say that?’ A man steps forward and asks the question bluntly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said who are you to say that? England is a multi-cultural society that prides itself on the acceptance of all faiths. We must adhere to those principles. It’s the basis of any fair and decent society.’ He says with a fixed gaze. I take him in, a middle aged man, portly and serious looking. He looks intelligent and is wearing a short sleeve shirt with pens in the top pocket and sweat marks on the armpits.

  ‘What about food? Will religion feed everyone? Will it provide medicine and security too? Will it give us lights at night time? Will it fend off the next attack we get? Or do you think this is over and we can go back to normal living? That infection, or disease or whatever it is…it’s mutating. The infected are getting smarter. They can speak and act like we do. They’ll come again, they need to eat and find humans to carry their infection on. Do what you want but if you give any of our essential ground to religion I will tear it down. Burn the bodies and burn them quickly.’

  ‘Faith gives hope Mr Howie,’ the man continues and I feel Dave bristling at my side.

  ‘Faith gives hope, religion pits man against man. We can deal with those things later but for now we carry on as before. We give no ground for any religious buildings.’

  ‘What about a multi-faith area, they were common in many places. A quiet area for reflection and for people to worship how they see fit.’

  ‘No! Is this meeting over? Good, we’ve got work to do.’

  ‘Meeting adjourned, Mr Howie will get his team ready at the front and we’ll send the people down there.’

  TEN

  DAY TWO

  ‘So Mr Maguire…is the food okay for you?’ Lucy asks watching him tuck into the plate of pasta and chicken cooked in a creamy sauce, topped off with a mound of grated cheese and served with two garlic bread baguettes.

  ‘Wonderful,’ Paco mutters with a mouthful of food. The worry in him had increased as Lucy prepared the food, watching the calories mount up and when he saw the white bread going in the oven he felt another mild state of panic settling in. However, he was hungry and despite most of the foods being banned by his nutritionist he soon tucked in and started devouring the lot.

  ‘I haven’t eaten anything for hours, not since last evening on set and that was just a salad.’

  ‘You said you were on set, what were you filming?’ Lucy asks sipping from her glass of wine.

  ‘Ha! You wouldn’t believe it but a zombie film,’ he winced at the memory.

  ‘No way? Now that is ironic.’

  ‘Uh-huh, definitely. We were filming a scene where this woman gets taken down by zombies, that’s when it started, only one of the zombies turns out to be real.’

  ‘Oh my god,’ she leans forward staring in horror, ‘is that true?’

  ‘Yeah, as I sit here now. One of the zombies was real. It ate another zombie, one of the actor zombies…’

  ‘Bloody hell, you couldn’t make it up could you.’

  ‘Why would I make it up?’ Paco asks.

  ‘Eh? No it’s a saying, like when something is too weird then it must be true because you wouldn’t make anything that weird up.’

  ‘Oh I get it…I think,’ he replies forking another load of pasta into his mouth.

  ‘Listen Paco, we can’t leave the lights on tonight. We’ll have to stay in the dark and use candles. We can’t risk anything seeing the lights through the windows. Only two of the rooms have curtains and they’re threadbare.’ She stared off to the window and the darkening sky outside while Paco felt yet another state of panic course through him at the prospect of being in the dark.

  ‘Okay,’ he nods, not wanting to show the fear, ‘makes sense I guess. Do we need to keep watch or anything like that? Like you know…one stays awake while the other…’

  ‘Yeah I know what keeping watch means, we’re pretty isolated here. The nearest house is a few miles away, the nearest village is the one you went through and that’s quite a distance. I don’t think anything will come here.’

  ‘What about that one out there?’

  ‘Him? Oh he lives in that house a few miles away so he’s accounted for,’ she shrugs, taking another sip of wine.

  ‘Did he live alone?’ Paco asks.<
br />
  ‘I don’t know I’ve only been here a couple of weeks. I only met him once to say hi, I never went to his house.’

  ‘Well didn’t he say if he had a wife or anything?’

  ‘Nope, he was too busy looking at my tits to mention if he was married…Paco? Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah fine,’ he sputters on the food going down the wrong hole at the casual way she mentioned the man looking at her breasts.

  ‘And don’t think I haven’t caught you looking at them either,’ she adds quickly.

  ‘What? I haven’t looked at them,’ Paco protests with the fork hovering an inch from his mouth.

  ‘No?…well why not? What’s wrong with them?’

  ‘What? Say Lucy I don’t mean to be rude, you have a great rack and all, but the whole end of the world thing has kinda distracted me.’

  ‘Oh yeah…that,’ she says glumly making him frown, ‘so you think I’ve got a great rack eh?’

  ‘Er…yeah, really nice,’ he shoves the food in, concentrating on munching, preparing the next forkful and avoiding looking over at her. Having got this attention a lot from women he wasn’t unduly surprised but right now, after everything that’s happened…it’s just a bit much.

  ‘So, we’ll go by candle light tonight and then tomorrow we’ll have to think about going out for supplies,’ she switches instantly back to serious mode.

  ‘Supplies? Where from?’

  ‘My car is in the garage; we can take that and check that village or maybe go into one of the other towns.’

  ‘But that village was overrun, those things were everywhere,’ Paco replies, both relieved at the change of topic but also slightly alarmed at the way she flits so quickly.

  ‘But there’s two of us, one to watch and the other to go inside and get stuff. If it’s too dangerous we’ll go somewhere else.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he nods again. The thought of going out anywhere is terrifying but she’s right. They’ll need supplies.

  ‘Maybe you should have a bath tonight; the power won’t last so we should make use of it.’

  ‘Er, yeah that’d be great Lucy, what about you?’