The Undead the Second Week Compilation Edition Days 8-14

by RR Haywood

‘DAD!’ Todd screams.

  ‘You nasty fucker!’ The rapist shouts, ‘that’s fucking cold that is…’ Striding forward he grabs Todd by the wrist, wrenching him onto his feet before giving him to the man holding the shotgun. ‘What a nasty cunt.’ Shaking his head he marches back to Andrew, punching him hard in the face. ‘Let him go,’ the rapist shouts as both Billy and Andrew scream in terror. ‘I said…fucking let him go…’ The thumps get harder as Andrew takes the blows, refusing to yield his son to the two men.

  ‘Stubborn cunt…fucking let him go!’ The rapist bursts into violent rage, using both hands to reign blow after blow into Andrew.

  Screaming, Andrew pushes Billy away with a hard motion before lunging up at the rapist. Caught by surprise the rapist falls back as Andrew powers into him, roaring with blind fury as he lashes out landing punches and slaps into the rapists face.

  ‘Ere, fucking get a grip,’ the shotgun man shouts.

  Andrew, pumped with rage, presses the attack harder. Lilly catches a glimpse of her father’s face, a mixture of terror and berserk anger twisting his normally mild features. The rapist goes down, unable to fend the blows off and tripping on the uneven surface. Andrew surges in, sensing the opportunity to cause damage. Like the undead they are running from, Andrew clamps his mouth onto the rapist’s cheek, gnashing his teeth as he drives both clenched fists into the side of his head.

  The sudden boom of the shotgun is deafening in the small enclosure. The force of the explosion sends Andrew flying off to the side, his head a bloody pulp with half the skull removed, brains and bones mixing with bloody goo down the foliage around them.

  Lilly stifles the scream, pushing her own face into the dirt and biting down. Tears sting her eyes, her whole body tensed completely rigid.

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ the man with the shotgun complains, ‘where did that come from? You alright?’

  ‘No, I’m not fucking alright…cunt bit my fucking cheek…shit that hurts…’

  ‘Let’s have a look…oh fuck that’s right through…’ he sucks in a sharp intake of breath, ‘nasty mate…that’ll need stitches.’

  ‘Cunt…fucking cunt…’ rapist stands up unsteadily, swaying as he clutches his bleeding face. Grabbing a piece of cloth from his pocket, he presses the material to the wound, pushing hard as he stalks over to the boys and grabs a screaming Billy by the hand.

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’ the rapist bellows, spraying blood over the young boys face.

  ‘Don’t!’ shotgun man shouts at seeing the rapist raise a hand to strike Billy, ‘Doc’ll go fucking spare if they’re marked…’

  Holding his hand above Billy, rapist struggles to bring his temper back under control, ‘yeah but he don’t know we got two does he…we can just take one back and he’ll be happy…’

  ‘Nah,’ shotgun shakes his head, ‘come on…take the gun and I’ll take the boys.’

  ‘Fine, you take the fucking brats then…fuck that hurts…CUNT!’ He screams with temper, running over to slam the front of his boot into the mess that was Andrews head.

  ‘Sam…’ Norman bleats pitifully, swimming in and out of consciousness.

  ‘What you wanna do with him?’ Shotgun man asks.

  ‘Fuck him, skulls fucked…he’ll be dead in a bit…’

  ‘Sure?’ Shotgun man asks, ‘just shoot him now.’

  ‘Nah fuck him, let him die slow the cunt…his fucking mate bit my cheek didn’t he…’

  Without further words the rapist takes the gun as the other man grabs the boys, one big hand gripping one wrist each. Pulling them to their feet they start walking off, leaving the devastated camp behind them and one girl frozen in fear as she hides in the undergrowth.

  Twenty Four

  The silence is only broken by the ragged death rattle of Norman. Lilly forces herself to get up, pushing with her hands until her feet take her weight and she staggers from the perimeter into the camp.

  Standing still and stares at the ruined body of her father. His head unrecognisable from the blast of the shotgun. Norman twitches and murmurs quietly.

  From instinct she goes first to Samantha, kneeling down at her side as she takes in the pulped mess of her face. Nose clearly broken and her lips split and torn from being driven into her teeth which are snapped and bloodied. One side of her face has completely caved in.

  Bending over she tries to listen for breathing, her own heart pounding with abject terror. No sounds, nothing. She remembers the first aid training the school made them all do and gropes the girl’s bloody neck, feeling for a pulse.

  Checking wrists and then finally resting her head on Sam’s bony chest, she is forced to accept that Sam has been beaten to death. The sheer number of overwhelming hard blows caused serious brain injury.

  Standing up, she staggers towards Norman then pauses. A small voice permeates her brain, forcing her to listen. The boys have been taken but they’re alive. Those men said they couldn’t hurt them.

  Norman is dying. Thick blood oozes from one ear and his breathing comes with ragged gulps. Turning her head, she stares at the direction the two men went then back to Norman.

  Quickly she darts forward and scrabbles at Norman’s belt for the knife he had there. Her elbow digs into the top of his thigh and something hard within his pocket. Thinking it might be another useful weapon, she pushes her hand in, grabs the object and pulls it free. A wave of nausea surges through her as she realises it’s the keys to the Landover from the holiday cottage.

  Any sense of sadness towards Norman vanishes in that second. They could have loaded up and gone, be far away and safe. This man, this foul, perverted, sick man hid these keys just so he could have a night outside with her. They didn’t need to be here. Her dad, the two boys, Sam…

  For a second, she imagines herself plunging the knife into his chest, finishing the job the other men started. Instead she gets to her feet and moves away, heading out of the camp and into the darkness of the forest.

  Without a look back, she leaves the scene. Her father is dead. Sam is dead. Norman is dying and her brother and Todd are being dragged terrified by two rapist, murdering men.

  Forcing herself to think straight, she creeps after them, knowing that going too slow will run the risk of the men getting too far ahead, but too fast and they’ll hear her.

  How did they find them? It cannot be an accident. They must have found the holiday cottage and then followed the footpath. The smell of the fire would have drifted and then all they had to do was wait until dark and find the light of the fire.

  The shock is deep and repressed. Her mother is almost certainly dead. Her father is dead. Everyone she knows is probably dead or one of them things. The one remaining person is now being dragged away to some doctor somewhere. Todd too, so both the boys are now the sole reason to keep going. The image of her father launching the attack at the rapist summons a rare feeling of pride towards her father. That he had the courage to go out fighting for his children, and if nothing else, he hurt that man badly. A weak, mild man, beset by problems that hampered his own life and that of his family, but at the last second he really did show he was a man.

  The tree line ends suddenly. The darkness eases up as moonlight floods the scene before her. The figures are ahead, moving slowly away. Two big figures gripping two smaller ones. If she can see them, they will be able to see her.

  Stay low and be ready to drop. Common sense takes over as she moves off at a crouch. As they navigate the meadows and fields she periodically loses sight of them. She takes the opportunity to get upright and run faster until they once more come into view and she’s forced to go low again.

  Get ahead and do something to their car. That is the best plan. Prevent them from driving off and buy time to get the boys back. But in the dark, in a strange place and not knowing the direction they are heading, she has no choice but to follow them. If she deviates she runs the risk of becoming lost and being no use at all.

  What about when they drive off? They’ll see he
r behind them in the Landrover. How can she follow them without being seen?

  She could call out and go with them, but after seeing what they did to Samantha, that idea is disregarded very quickly. She’ll be no good at all if she’s dead and the other man said he liked them with more meat on their bones and some tits to grab.

  There is no other option but to keep going. So she does. Staying low and hardly daring to breathe, she follows them back to the holiday cottage.

  When it comes into view she has no opportunity to get ahead of them, but again has to wait and hold back, taking care not to walk on the dirt track and run the risk of kicking a stone or pebble.

  ‘You need to wash that cheek,’ shotgun man says.

  ‘Yeah,’ rapist replies, ‘fucking hurts, you reckon they might have painkillers there?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At that fucking house!’ Rapist snaps.

  ‘Might do, worth a look. You wash that cut and I’ll have a look. You boys thirsty? Eh? You want some water?’

  Too terrified to reply, the boys get dragged along quietly sobbing. Lilly feels her heart breaking at the sight of Billy and Todd being so close but being unable to do anything to help them. As they near the cottage, torches get switched on and used to find the way to the unlocked back door. The four of them disappear inside.

  Lilly takes the chance to run ahead into the small parking area and find their car. She finds a big white van and goes for the driver’s door. Locked. Same with all the doors.

  How do you disable a van? She has no idea but runs round the vehicle looking for anything that could be broken or snapped. The walls are sheer sided. The lid to the engine bit is closed and sealed. The underneath wouldn’t mean anything to her. Even the fuel flap is locked.

  Tyres! She can puncture the tyres with the knife but then they would know someone had done that. What is the choice? Do nothing and run the risk of losing them.

  With a faint grunt she stabs the kitchen knife at one of the tyres, blanching when the blade bounces off to skitter to one side. Retrieving the knife she tries again, amazed at how much force is needed to puncture an almost rigidly inflated tyre. She aims for the top, where the tread is thicker, not knowing to attack the thinner side wall of the tyre.

  Eventually, out of sheer frustration she slams the knife at the wheel. Missing the top and hitting the side. The point sinks in, only a small amount but enough for the hiss of air to let her know she’s hit the right spot. Yanking the blade free, she visibly watches as the van sinks a few inches as the air escapes the pressurised tube of the tyre.

  ‘Where’s this place we going then?’ The rapist asks as they leave the cottage.

  ‘South somewhere, some old manor house..Chi…no…Chantsworth House? Can’t remember what he said now.’

  ‘Chapsworth House, that was it.’

  ‘What the fuck you asking me for if you already know it?’ The man holding the hands of the two boys says coming into view. Lilly scrabbles backwards to the Landrover, dropping down on the far side to stay out of sight.

  ‘Because,’ the rapist sighs, ‘I fucking forgot didn’t I…what with my face being fucking bitten off and all.’

  ‘The others’ll already be there, we’re late as it is.’

  ‘Yeah but he ain’t gonna moan is he, what with us getting these two.’

  ‘Hope not,’ the man with the boys replies, ‘FUCK IT!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Puncture…look…’

  ‘Fuck…must have been them potholes, shit… shit…we got a spare?’ Rapist feels at the freshly washed wound to his face, pressing a clean tea towel against it.

  ‘Yeah underneath, ‘I’ll do it…hold these.’ The rapist takes the boys, using one hand to hold their two tiny wrists while he presses the cloth to the side of his face.

  ‘He’s gonna get shitty as fuck at how late we are,’ the rapist comments.

  ‘Yeah I fucking know he will but it isn’t our fault, is it?’ The other man snaps.

  ‘Not saying it is, but…just saying….that’s all,’ rapist mumbles, wincing at the pain in his face.

  Lilly watches the man work, not realising the spare wheel was held there. It only takes the experienced man half an hour to get the damaged wheel off, pushing it aside and fitting the spare one. Grunting with the exertion of tightening the bolts. She wills them to keep speaking, to give her information or details of where they are going. But rapist is too sore to speak and snaps angrily at the boys when they cry too loud, and the other man is pre-occupied changing the wheel.

  ‘Done,’ he stands back wiping his filthy hands down the front of his jeans.

  ‘Thank fuck for that,’ rapist mumbles, ‘get in…go on…get in the fucking van!’ He snaps at the two boys, manhandling them into the passenger side before clambering up and slamming the door closed.

  The other man climbs in the driver’s side, starts the engine and pulls away. He sweeps round the car park before pulling out onto the road. Lilly runs round to driver’s door of the Landrover, fumbling with the keys to get the door unlocked. Inside she stares down at the basic controls. The gear stick too worn and faded now to show the numbers of the gears.

  Shoving the key in she turns it too quickly, not giving the coil a chance to warm up and start the diesel engine. When it fails to start she keeps trying, eventually getting the loud engine spluttering as it rumbles to life.

  Grinding noises wrench into the night as she shoves and pulls at the gear stick, trying to find a slot for it to go in. It takes time to figure out how to hold the clutch down, find the gear and lift it at the right time while lifting the gas pedal for the engine to move, and then even longer to find the handbrake and release it.

  False starts as the engine stalls again and again. Lilly, refusing to let the frustration take over keeps trying, learning from each mistake until gingerly, the vehicle moves off. It doesn’t have power steering and she grits her teeth at the strength needed to turn the steering wheel, learning it’s much easier to do when the vehicle is moving.

  Onto the lane and she bounces along, first trying to fumble for the headlights then realising that’s the last thing she wants to do. Inside the van they might not hear the engine but at night they will definitely see the lights.

  So she pushes on in darkness, bouncing the vehicle over the potholes and ruts as she keeps it in first gear. The engine screams out, begging her to change up and eventually she gives it a go. Losing all power as she fails to find the slot and is forced to start again from scratch.

  Juddering, failing, stopping and starting she gets to the end of the lane, to the junction with the main road and no sign of the van in either direction.

  Trying to think, she imagines the direction they came from would be left, back to the houses they found earlier. Maybe she should go right then to find Chapsworth House?

  The tears start to fall, she’s lost them already. With a fifty-fifty chance of them being in either direction, she pulls out and heads right, again juddering the vehicle as she clumsily tries to push through the gears.

  She refuses to sob. The tears can stream down as much as they want. That’s a physical reaction that she has no control over. But sobbing? Weeping? Not now.

  If she doesn't find them, then that is the place to head for. At least Sam took the painkillers from the holiday cottage. That rapist scum can suffer a bit longer. Hopefully he will get infected from the bite and die a slow painful death.

  Her mind fills with images of stabbing the two men repeatedly, cutting their throats and watching them die slowly. But none of that matters. What matters is getting Billy and Todd away from them, away from here and somewhere safe.

  Fifteen years old and she pushes the Landrover on, determined to do what her father and Norman failed to do and protect her family.

  Twenty Five

  ‘BOSS!’

  His own voice snatches him from the final layers of sleep. His voice but not recognised. He knows he shouted, but the yank from sleep to awa
ke was too fast and has left the mind unable to differentiate between reality and dream.

  Sat bolt upright with wild eyes staring round the room, he tries to remember what he was seeing just before he woke up. But the images have already faded and disappeared. Mr Howie? What happened to him?

  Scrabbling to the end of the bed, Nick gets quickly to his feet. Too quickly. The waves of dizziness pulse through his head, forcing him to sink back down onto the soft mattress.

  Slow down. Slow down get a grip.

  Last night. Clarence got away with the Saxon. Everyone else had to run for it. He got into the street and was chased. He killed the undead and got in here. Right. His head makes the connection to the universe. The built in sat-nav telling his brain where he is in time and space.

  ‘I slept here,’ muttering to himself he looks round the room, at the pink bedding covers and the lace pink covers on the bedside lamps, and the faded pink rug and the cream and pink dressing table.

  ‘Nice choice,’ he repulses at the shock of pink on display. Almost thankful that the lads won’t know he chose an overwhelmingly pink room to sleep in. It was dark though, and he was knackered and that bed was very comfortable.

  Nodding, he tries getting to his feet again. This time his heart works in synchronisation with his body and the pressure is stable enough to sustain the movement. Moving quickly, he exits the room and opens doors until finding the bathroom, grimacing at the sight of more pink. Pink wash basin, pink bath, pink toilet seat cover. Everywhere is bloody pink.

  Toilet seat up, zipper down and release. The jet of piss is joined by the sigh of relief as his bladder is allowed to empty the contents.

  Eyes track the room, his upper lip twitching in horror at the vibrant shades of pink. His own reflection makes him look twice, a literal double take done at the sight of the man staring back at him.

  Not a boy or a youth anymore but a man. His thick dark hair stands up straight from his head, stubble coats his set jawline, any fat that remained has been sluiced off from the constant running, fighting and lifestyle of the last two weeks. What remains is a lean man with defined muscles, a narrow waist that flares to a wide back and the promise of powerful shoulders.