by RR Haywood
The hordes cease as one. Her howl continues. A lone voice of a wolf calling through the forest. Pitch perfect she carries on, expending her breath as the noise eases off gradually.
The hordes charge. One second they’re stood there staring. The next second and they’re moving and moving fast.
‘Fuck this,’ Paco shouts, ‘come on dog.’ They turn away, running back towards the precinct. A sudden urge to live, to try and protect the dog floods through Paco. Not a fear of being taken by them, more a desire to give her the best chance possible. Re-pay the debt. All of the debts.
They sprint easily through the bollards, heading towards the enclosed shopping area. Paco selects a shop at the far end, a big clothes store that must have a delivery door at the back.
They charge in, Paco throwing rails and mannequins behind him in a vain attempt to slow them down. He slams through the rear door, heading down the bare walled corridor and the wooden notice board filled with motivational sales messages and a Health and Safety at work poster.
Reaching the double doors at the back, Paco slams the bar down, wrenching the doors open as he hears the first of the monsters coming through the broken windows of the shop floor behind him.
They sprint off into the darkness. Not knowing the direction to take or what route to follow, just knowing they need to make distance as fast as possible.
THIRTY-EIGHT
DAY ELEVEN
‘Not far, just stay on this road,’ Clarence says, shining his torch onto the map book spread open on his lap.
‘Okay, how the hell are we going to find Chris?’ I ask him.
‘We can use the radios when we get into the town, it doesn’t look too big.’
‘Ted said he’s in a four wheel drive vehicle, he’s got two others with him, both ex-army,’ Blowers shouts down.
‘Right, so we’ve got two vehicles with about a dozen people to find a black dog at night in a town with no street lights working…shouldn’t be too hard,’ I muse for the benefit of everyone.
‘At least we’re not going to attack a giant horde of zombies this time,’ Cookey shouts.
‘Ahhh Cookey! You’ve said it now,’ Nick replies.
‘Ha sorry,’ Cookey laughs.
Despite the long day and incredible heat, our spirits are high from the news about the dog and the implications this has. That maybe this thing can be beaten. Just the faintest glimmer of hope, but that’s all we need.
‘Turn off here,’ Clarence points to the junction ahead, indicating me to take the left side. The powerful headlights sweep across the dark hedgerows and fields. Slowly they give way to cottages, then houses and within a few minutes were in the town proper. Driving along residential streets with dark houses on both sides. No lights other than the headlights of the vehicle.
‘Someone keep trying the radio,’ I shout back. Dave picks it up, transmitting for Chris every few seconds. Static and a crackled transmission finally comes back. We keep going, trying to figure out which way to go to improve the signal.
‘Dave to Chris, come in over.’
‘Chris to Dave can you hear me?’
‘Dave to Chris, loud and clear now, suggest you stop moving in case the signal goes.’
‘Chris to Dave, roger that we are stationary.’
‘Likewise Chris, what is your current location?’
‘Chris to Dave, we missed the first turning and went too far north, we’ve turned round and just entered the town from the north. We’re in, hang on….we’re in Sycamore Street over.’
‘He said they’re in Sycamore Street,’ Dave relays to Clarence.
‘Yeah I heard it…on the radio…that I’m holding in my hand,’ Clarence replies pointedly. ‘Clarence to Chris.’
‘Go ahead Clarence.’
‘I’ve got you on Sycamore Street, stay there, we’ll come to you.’
‘Roger that, remaining here out.’
Clarence directs me through the streets until we reach the right one and see a four wheel drive parked up in the middle of the road with the lights off. We head over, stopping nearby and I kill the lights and engine so we can talk quietly without attracting too much attention.
We jump down, armed up and ready. Dave directs the lads to fan out into a circle facing outwards while Clarence and I head over to Chris.
‘You made good time,’ he says with a quick handshake.
‘Bloody right we did,’ I reply.
‘Chris, what’s your search pattern?’
‘Hello Dave, nice to see you too, we haven’t established one yet but we have seen shit loads of bodies in the streets.’
‘Really?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, first residential street we went into, bodies everywhere. Most of them had their throats ripped out, but messy…not with a knife or blade.’
‘That’s a good sign.’
‘Yeah but they’re also old. Been there for days at least. Couldn’t see any fresh corpses.’
‘Okay…er what do we do if we see it?’
‘Take it back to the fort,’ Chris replies with a puzzled expression.
‘What if it doesn’t want to go?’ I ask, ‘if it’s big enough to kill so many of them…we can’t exactly shoot it can we?’
‘Good point, my best answer? Worry about it when it happens, we’ve got to find the thing first.’
‘Chris, looking on the map the town centre is…believe it or not,’ he grins up, ‘in the centre of the town…we should head there first and work out.’
‘Mr Howie,’ Tom calls out.
‘Yes mate.’
‘I’m sure the army do the same thing but I was search-trained with the police. Clarence is right, we should start in the middle and work out in a radius, marking the streets off as we go. The biggest problem is that its night so unless the dog has reverted to wild behaviour it will probably be holed up somewhere asleep…if it’s still here.’
‘Alright, we do street by street for now, if that doesn’t work then in the best words of the army we worry about the rest later.’
‘There’s more likely to be contact in the town centre,’ Clarence suggests.
‘Is that a good thing or not? Is the sound likely to draw the dog out or make it run away?’ I ask everyone.
‘Run away probably, they have to train dogs not to run from gunfire, dogs naturally don’t like loud noises, ever done the vacuuming near one?’ Chris answers.
‘Yeah fair one, right…town centre, see you there?’
‘Roger that,’ Chris replies. We head back to our vehicles.
‘We’ll take the lead Chris,’ Clarence shouts out. We have to wait for the four wheel drive to reverse back and let us get through, then we wait again while it executes a fifteen point turn using the narrowest part of the road. Clarence tutting and shaking his head at the delay.
‘Chris was always a shit driver, I bet he’s going nuts right now fucking it up in front of us,’ he chuckles.
We get going, guided by Clarence through the street towards the centre. Nick takes the GPMG with Dave sat on the top holding a powerful searchlight powered by a cable running back into an auxiliary plug in the back of the Saxon. The beam of light sweeps across the road in front of us every few seconds as Dave makes a full methodical rotation. Blowers opens the rear doors, everyone else crammed towards the rear scanning the houses and sides as we go by.
‘BODIES AHEAD,’ Dave shouts down, his comments relayed by Nick. The beam of light picks up several corpses in the street.
‘We’re gonna have a look at them, Nick stay on the GPMG, everyone else fan out,’ I bring the vehicle to a stop. Blowers leads the lads from the back doors, fanning out holding torches in one hand and staring out to the sides and front.
‘They’re fresh,’ Clarence says, dropping down and shining his torch into the gaping ragged hole of a neck wound. Several others have the same throat wounds.
‘You got something?’ Chris walks up, his men joining ours in facing out to form a guard.
‘These
the same as you saw before?’ I ask him.
‘Yep, exactly the same but these are fresh. Maybe a few hours at most.’
‘Look at these two, broken necks but no wounds,’ Clarence lifts the head of an undead, twisting it to show the lack of resistance from the spinal column.
‘A dog couldn’t do that, there must be someone with it, how hard is it to do that?’
‘What break a neck like that? If you do it exactly right it’s not that difficult but you have to remember these things would have been fighting back and squirming….keeping hold of an adult body and doing it requires strength.’
‘So we’re looking for a big bastard and a dog then?’
‘Not necessarily, Dave could do this easy enough, so could Lani if they knew exactly what they were doing,’ Clarence explains.
‘The woman said the dog was going for the throat nearly every time, and those other bodies look old enough to be the right time…and these are fresh and have the same wounds, at least we can assume the dog is still here,’ Chris adds, standing up and looking about. We all do, as if the dog will come bounding over wagging its tail with a ball in its mouth.
A few minutes later and we’re driving on, pulling out of a side road into the town centre and looking at the same level of destruction as every other town centre we’ve seen so far.
‘CONTACT,’ Dave shouts down, ‘DEAD AHEAD.’
Clarence and I both lean forward, staring out the window but seeing nothing moving.
‘Where?’ Clarence shouts.
‘It was moving away to the left,’ Dave replies.
‘Moving away? Was it a person then?’ I ask.
‘Not sure, I don’t think so, it ran like one of the things,’ Dave shouts.
‘They don’t run away,’ Clarence mutters as I speed up, heading down the main road.
‘Stop there, next to that red van,’ Dave shouts, ‘it went towards those shops.’
‘Clarence, let Chris know what we’ve got, we’ll go after it and leave him here with the Saxon in case we lose it, everyone else get ready to run.’ I shout out.
‘Chasing zombies…great,’ Nick groans.
Clarence relays the message as we jump down, quickly shrugging our rucksacks on and taking our assault rifles, we de-camp the Saxon and follow Dave as he leads us into a precinct area. His torch beam holding steady despite his running.
‘Which way Dave?’ I shout ahead.
‘Wait,’ Dave holds his hand up in a fist. We come to a halt as he scans the ground, moving from shop front to shop front.’
‘Fresh dog shit here,’ Tom shouts, holding his torch on a brown pile of dog mess.
‘How do you know it’s fresh?’ Cookey asks.
‘It looks fresh,’ Tom replies.
‘Touch it, see if it’s still warm,’ Cookey urges.
‘Okay,’ Tom bends down, his hand extending towards the pile of shit.
‘Tom I was joking,’ Cookey yells as Tom looks up grinning, ‘twat.’
‘Yeah like I was gonna stick my finger in it.’
‘Blowers would, he’d stick something else in it,’ Cookey laughs.
‘Through here,’ Dave yells. We jog over as Dave shows us the fresh looking damage through a clothes shop.
‘Fresh blood,’ Dave shines his torch on the ground at smeared and still glistening blood stains.
‘Whoever it was cut their feet on the glass,’ he continues, ‘no shoes…must be the things.’
‘Why was it running away?’ Clarence asks, shining his torch about at the debris strewn about the shop floor.
‘Not it, them,’ Dave replies, ‘a lot went through here, different blood marks across a wide aisle.’
‘And it was running?’ I ask him.
‘It was Mr Howie.’
‘Maybe chasing something then? Otherwise it would come for us, come on.’ I take the lead with Dave, shining our torches and following the blood trails through the rear store rooms to the open back doors.
‘Chris to Howie.’
‘Yeah go ahead mate.’
‘This van is covered in dog hair on the seat, there’s fresh supplies in the back too.’
‘Okay mate, we’re chasing zombies…hang on there.’
‘CONTACT,’ Dave drops to a kneeling position, aiming down the road. He takes a single shot as the rest of us bundle out the doors, looking up to see a body dropping down. We jog up the road to the body. An adult male undead lying in a pool of blood with half its head blown off.
‘Feet aren’t cut,’ I shine my torch down. The undead is wearing shoes.
‘So he’s chasing something that’s chasing something else…that might be our dog?’ Clarence asks, ‘is that about right?’
‘Just about mate,’ we take off. Following the road as Dave picks out spots of blood here and there, some of it still glistening and wet looking.
‘This is a weird fucking day,’ Cookey mutters.
‘Aren’t they all?’ Blowers replies.
THIRTY-NINE
The gunshot brings Paco to a sudden stop. Staring back over the heads of the horde still chasing after them. They don’t use guns do they? Shit, that wouldn’t be fair if one of them had a damn gun.
The dog barks at him, as though urging him to keep moving. That’s how he interprets it anyway, she could have just been barking at the things coming after them. It’s enough to get him moving and they start running again.
The long easy strides easily outstripping the monsters who run too jerkily to make gains on the distance. The only problem is the pace, Paco might be fit and strong but it’s also incredibly hot and there is no way he can maintain this pace. At some point he’ll have to slow down and rest, whereas the horde won’t.
All this runs through his mind as he runs. He eases down to a jog, checking behind him every few seconds and making sure the distance is pretty much the same. They gain very gradually but he knows he can hold this pace for a longer period, which buys them time.
They take side streets, veering off and taking lefts and right. Paco considered taking to the back gardens, vaulting the fences and disappearing into the darkness but the dog couldn’t jump six foot fences, well maybe it could but not one after the other and then keep doing it until they lost the things.
No, for now they’ve no choice but to stick to the roads and maybe lead the things away from the town centre before they head back towards their van and drive off. Yeah, that’s a good plan. Lead these stupid dumbfucks in a big loop and take them back to the start. A giggle escapes from his mouth at the thought of the stupid monsters being run round the block in a long line, like something from a crappy B movie.
‘Easy as pie,’ he laughs, reaching a hand out to pat the dog’s head.
FORTY
It held the hosts in the road. Content to watch the man and dog. For a few minutes it looked like they were going to charge and attack the hosts, which would have ended the matter easily.
For every second they paused, the infection gathered numbers. Far fewer than it wanted but then it had lost so many hosts to the constant battles.
Of the town’s population of tens of thousands, the infection had taken over half of them just in this area. Most of those had been lost at the fort, but these remained. And the more survivors it took out the greater the numbers grew.
The infection held them steady, watching the man and dog, the sun dropped and the infection released some of the chemicals. Making the hosts faster and stronger. The charge started. The prey ran off. The infection took off after them.
Now, as it pushed the hosts through the quiet streets it waited, waited for the heat and the distance to tire the man out. At that point it would release the chemicals it had chosen for tonight’s use.
FORTY-ONE
‘I can smell them,’ Dave shouts from ahead of us. Him and Lani out front and scanning the ground as they lead us through the streets.
‘Glad he can, I can only smell Nick’s arse,’ Cookey mutters.
‘Wasn�
�t me,’ Nick replies.
‘It was me, sorry, all this jiggling about made me fart,’ Tom says.
‘You sure you haven’t shit yourself Tom?’ Nick spits at the smell.
‘Might have done mate, wanna check for me?’
‘Ask Blowers, that’s his bag,’ Cookey quips.
‘Get fucked,’ Blowers swears.
We keep running, the sweat pouring down our faces and soaking our clothes. Dave urges us to speed up. We respond by lengthening our stride and trying to keep pace with him and Lani. Clarence still surprises me, how someone so big can run so well. His face looks strained and focussed at the same time. Flushed with sweat literally pouring from his bald head but he doesn’t moan once, just stares ahead with complete concentration.
‘Lani, stay with the group, I’m running ahead to see how far they are,’ Dave shouts and moves off as Lani reluctantly drops back. We watch as Dave opens up and strides ahead to the next junction, turning to make sure we’ve seen the route he’s taking before running out of view.
On reaching the junction we turn into the road, Dave in the distance still pulling away. We chug along breathing hard but maintaining a steady pace. Dave’s voice shouts quickly followed by shots ringing out. We reach Dave standing over several bodies, his chest hardly heaving as he checks his magazine and slots it back in.
‘Big group chasing something,’ he explains, ‘I shouted and fired into them, they didn’t acknowledge me.’
‘They’re after something important then,’ I reply.
‘Darren came after us, and despite the personal connection I think he did it because we killed so many. If that dog is killing so many then maybe it’s the same thing?’ Dave shrugs and looks back up the road.
‘Fresh dog shit, freshly killed bodies, it’s worth considering, come on let’s see if we can’t catch them up,’ we start off again. Charging down the street moving faster now.