by RR Haywood
‘Medical tents are functioning, we got that male nurse and his wife checking new people. We’ll need more but it’ll do for now.’
‘Why you say this like you do this?’ Lenski glares at Maddox, ‘I do all these things yes? But you steal the lemonlight.’
‘Lemonlight?’ Maddox grins, an instant transformation that changes his face, giving him a completely different personality.
‘What?’ Lenski glares round at the smiles.
‘It’s limelight,’ Lani comments.
‘Oh this funny yes?’ She glares first at Maddox then at me, which abruptly wipes the smirk from my face. Give me a horde of zombies to fight any day, rather than getting on Lenski’s bad side.
‘Er, Lilly alright?’ I ask Lani to change the subject.
‘In our rooms,’ Lani replies, ‘I had to shoo these two away.’ She nods at Blowers and Cookey, ‘which was very bloody hard until I told them how old she is.’
‘How old is she?’ I ask.
‘Fifteen boss,’ Blowers pipes up.
‘You’re shitting me?’ I exclaim.
‘No way,’ Maddox shakes his head, earning a swift dig in the ribs from Lenski.
‘That’s what she said. She er, she said something else too,’ Lani drops her voice, ‘she was so worried Nick would desert her, she offered herself to him, you know… sexually.’
‘Fuck,’ I gasp.
‘He turned her down too,’ Lani explains with no little touch of pride.
‘Good lad,’ I raise my eyebrows. Nick was high in my estimations before but now? Now he’s off the chart. Mind you, I know in my heart that we’d all do the same. Even Blowers and Cookey, for all their banter, wouldn’t do that.
‘Poor girl,’ Lenski sighs, ‘we all see these things yes but she see them in the one day, father, friend and her brother plus the man try and touch her.’
‘She’ll cope,’ Maddox lifts his head, ‘she got to.’
‘I know this, but still it sad,’ Lenski lifts one shoulder, ‘we lose the boys last night and I sad, we lose the people today and I sad. Roy he kill the two men and… It never end no?’
‘One day,’ Lani mutters staring at me.
‘Shit,’ Cookey gasps, snapping out attention to him. He stands completely still, staring at the dirty pane of lead lined glass giving a smudged view of outside. Slowly his arm lifts to point one finger at a single fat droplet of water rolling down the glass, ‘rain.’
Forty Five
On the Sixth day there was rain. A squall. A passing cloud laden with moisture. The rain fell and within a few hours all signs of it were gone; evaporated back into the super-heated atmosphere.
The cessation of mankind has had multiple effects. Every school student learns that people take oxygen in and exhale carbon dioxide. Every student learns that carbon dioxide contributes to the warming effect of the planet.
Only humanity didn’t cease. A large proportion of it ceased being human, but they didn’t go away. The undead still take oxygen in. The only way to keep the body moving is to draw air in so the lungs can still enrich the infected blood that pumps through the infected heart.
Cars. Factories. Aircraft. Ships. Trains. Motorbikes. Furnaces. Generators. Power-stations. Within twenty-four hours they all stopped. The fumes were no longer being pumped into the air. The smog started to clear, to lift. Cities who’s atmosphere caused absurdly high rates of asthma and other breathing related problems, started to change. The air became cleaner, day after day and after two weeks the stench of those fumes is barely noticeable.
In every language still spoken on the planet, the phrase new world, new rules is repeated over and again. An acceptance that what was… is no more. This is a new time and there are new rules.
Everything can change and maybe Mother Nature is aware of the abrupt change to the surface of her planet. Maybe, like any good manager, she recognises the opportunity to make alterations, to change things…to have a good clean out.
The surface is dirty and littered with corpses. The world is stained with the stench of death and dried blood, gore and innards slowly cooking in the heat or freezing in the cold.
A famous scientist once said Mother Nature can and will do what it takes to heal herself.
Maybe that time is now. Maybe all these things have happened for a reason..
Maybe Mother Nature will take this chance to cleanse.
Maybe.
Or maybe it’s just a storm. Something that would have happened regardless of the dead rising.
***
Reconnaissance; Observation of an area to gain information.
From the broiling, rolling clouds gathering on the horizon, one cloud is sent forward. Small and hardly visible, yet loaded with enough moisture to generate a single, fat drop of rain. That drop is expelled, sent through the atmosphere to plummet at terminal velocity towards the ground.
From the fort, the bastion of civilisation that already has seen many good men and women fall to protect it, one small man is sent forward to view the ground in preparation of the planned attack. The attack that seeks to recover the disabused children ripped from the loving embrace of their families to place them back into a secure and ordered environment.
From the horde that gathers quietly in the forests north of the fort, one undead is sent forward. The assumption that all the undead were drawn into the area for the attack of the previous evening is wrong. That attack came from the south east of England. More undead are available. More are summoned. More are gathered and quietly they wait. With chemical enforced patience they remain steady and resolute.
With each passing day their form becomes less and less human. Skin drawn and tight, teeth dirty and the thin lips pulled back in a never ending snarl ready for the bite.
Eyes sunk and hollow but still with that bloodshot red appearance. Hands claw, limbs twitch and drool hangs. Hundreds, thousands gather in the shade of the deep woods. More arrive from the North. They use hedgerows and valleys for stealth. Quiet. Unnoticed.
Determined.
Forty Six
‘You fixed it yet bro?’
‘No, like you know man I…’
‘What’s up bruv, you ain’t fixed it yet? You’s gonna get killed.’
‘Hey man, that’s like, oppressing me, like my soul and how I work, like you know…’
‘You’s should have it fixed by now bruv.’
‘Innit bruv, you wanna die do ya?’
‘What? No man…’
‘He wants to die Jagger.’
‘He does Mo Mo, he wants it bad.’
Ginge sweats, Ginge focusses, Ginge works harder as the two youths continue the unrelenting banter. The problem was simple, a fuel line connector shaken loose from all the constant battering. Finding it was difficult due to the vehicle being military specification and not the same as most road going vehicles.
The job would normally have taken at least half a day with the Saxon hoisted on a ramp, various parts stripped away and all the time the bill for labour costs growing at an alarming rate. But Jagger and Mohammed, as young and annoying as they may be, turn out to be great motivators. Ginge works quickly with the ever increasing threat of being killed, shot, stabbed, hung, strangled, drowned or choked on his own bollocks. He finds the fault and starts working to fix it.
‘Make it good,’ Clarence rumbles once the hippy mechanic shouts that he’s found the issue and can fix it, ‘if it breaks again I’ll come for you.’
‘Done man, like you know I fixed it and like, it ain't gonna break again man, like a proper fix that is for sure.’ Sliding out from underneath the vehicle he stands up, smiling coyly while wiping the sweat from his face.
‘Well done that man,’ Clarence booms, giving him a manly slap on the arm which sends the mechanic sprawling off to one side.
Inside the vehicle, Clarence winces at the heat built up from being sat baking in the sun all day. Ignition on and it fires up. The huge roar of those defiant engines screams into the quiet, desert
ed town centre.
Clarence smiles, like welcoming a comrade back into the unit. Patting the wheel gently, he murmurs welcome back then motions for the others to get in.
‘Shame that bruv,’ Jagger tuts, ‘I was looking forward to slicing you up.’
‘See if it holds first,’ Clarence adds evilly, enjoying the revenge on the man for daring to take their fort by force.
Clarence’s mind runs through the plan. Get back to the fort, get the gear loaded back in then see what Dave, Paula and Roy came up with. Wait till dark then we’re off. Get Nick, get the kids, get back to the fort again and see what else happens. Shaking his head at the never ending tasks laid out in front of him, he yawns and rolls his neck. The heat saps at his energy, causing little bites of annoyance to grow into an irritation. He is fed up of wiping the sweat from his face, fed up of drinking so much water just to replace the lost fluids, fed up of being so bloody hot all the time.
It can’t hold, this weather surely can’t keep on like this. Two weeks of solid, blistering sunshine that gets hotter every day.
On cue the shadow covers the ground, a veritable darkening of the skies. Leaning forward he peers through the windscreen to the heavens, seeing the rolling, deep grey clouds streaked with huge patches of almost pure blackness.
Dusk falls in an instant. The clouds blot the blue sky away. The electricity in the air charges up, hairs on his arms and neck prickle. Static fills the very air he breathes.
Foreboding, dark and dangerous. An act of awe inspiring power of a thing yet to come. The men are unable to speak, the air too thick. Clarence presses his foot down to drive power to the engine, racing faster to head back before all hell breaks loose.
Forty Seven
He runs. He likes running. Fast, sleek and fluid in his movements he stays low, surging alongside the hedgerows. Having memorised the map he knows the direction to head for, going for the higher ground that Lilly explained.
Sweat forms. This is an unusual occurrence for Dave, who’s body is so finely tuned as to be nearing perfection in physical form. Breathing harder he pushes on. Nick is within that place and Nick is part of the team. Mr Howie won’t stop until Nick is back with them.
The children are important but only in the sense that Dave has been told they are important. Knowledge not emotion. Mr Howie says this has to be done, so it gets done.
Into the copse, vaulting downed tree trunks, dodging low branches until he reaches the edge, drops down and scurries forward quickly.
Big house and exactly as described by Lilly. Lawns to the rear, the water of the river glistening as it goes by. Ground to the front stretching out to a high wall that runs round the perimeter to the main gate; an old stone built thing with two huge pillars and a cluster of sandbags stacked in a semi-circle.
Small figures move around the sandbags. Armed guards. Several of them but the distance between the gates and the house is huge. Dave watches, almost tutting at the absence of a fall back point or a second tier of defences between the gate and the house. No visible patrols, no sentry points.
Two people sat behind a shed off to the side of the house, must be a smoking area. Almost tutting again he imagines Nick sitting there smoking like he always does.
Dave watches them stand up, something in the movement of one of them. Nick. No doubt about it. Dave knows his team well and that is Nick standing there talking to the other man. They stay still then move closer, talking so they stay unheard, maybe an ally? Maybe someone willing to help when it goes off.
Dave nods to himself, a very small slight movement. Be aware that one of them might be willing to help. Either way, Dave knows the house is as good as taken. Not vanity or conceit, but pure confidence that he can do what others cannot do.
Entering a property this size and killing so many people is not something that bothers Dave. Taking life has never bothered Dave. What bothers him is the thought that in these very worst of times, there are people who will prey on the weak and vulnerable.
Nick is there. Nick is part of the team. Nick is to be taken back. Frowning, he knows he could go down now and get the job down with ease. No, the children. Remember the children. This isn’t just to get Nick out but to save the children too. He could get to Nick with ease but not the children, not without alerting the people inside to his presence, and like Mr Howie said, Dave charging at a bunch of terrified kids with two bloodied knives wouldn’t work that well.
Time to go. Recce complete. Scurrying back he simply follows his access route in. Building speed up and staying low, he races downhill and onto the level ground.
Just before reaching the waiting vehicle, he glances up at the huge sprawling clouds filling the horizon. A never ending wall of dark greys and blacks. The back of Dave’s neck starts to tingle.
‘See that,’ he comments on reaching the four wheel drive. Barely out of breath, he gets in the back and does his seatbelt up.
‘Yeah,’ Paula nods from behind the driver’s wheel.
‘Go.’
No one speaks, for the same reasons that Clarence finds affecting him, the air is too thick, too charged, too electric.
Hairs rise and Pauls finds a sudden, dull pain forming in the back of her head. It’s the same dull pain she always gets before a storm and as with Clarence, she finds her foot pressing down harder to make the journey back to the fort.
Forty Eight
Solitary it stands, scans the area then moves forward with a loping gait. Tall and thin, no excess fat on this undead, tight muscles that cling to the bone and show clear underneath the drawn skin.
Grey in pallor, it’s a sickening hue of decaying human but animated, full of energy and driven to push forward and scout the land.
Five miles north of the fort there is a wooded copse, a forest as ancient as the land itself. Oak trees that have been growing since records began. Protected by conservationists and home to many unique species, it now acts as a temporary refuge for the newest species on the Earth.
The infection calculated the loss of the previous evening. It factored there was a possibility that Howie and the others would evade it.
Howie was taken but the connection couldn’t be made. In the darkness and confusion even the infection couldn’t seek him out. Scent wouldn’t work with so many decaying bodies and so much blood split.
It starts to understand why the hosts fear him. Why, despite the chemicals, pheromones and endorphins pumped into the bodies, they still react.
He is unique. He is different. There is a dark spot of knowledge here. Even from the collected conscious of the undead, from the hive mind ability, the infection cannot understand what makes him unable to turn.
The infection felt both the host pushing the heart into his mouth, at the same time as it felt being pushed through the organisms within the heart. It was inside of him. The blood pumped into his mouth, absorbed into his soft tissue. He swallowed it into his stomach lining where it was absorbed but that was it, that’s where it ended.
Immunity. The infection knows what immunity is and if Howie were content to live his days quietly without issue there would be no further attempts to take him. Only he won’t. Like the proverbial fly in the ointment he keeps coming back, showing up here and there as he inflicts greater and greater losses on the hosts.
It doesn't want Howie now. Howie cannot be taken so instead he will be killed, at whatever cost, his life will be ended.
They must be exhausted. The infection understands they will be tired, hot, drained and therefore, they will be slower and less dynamic.
The infection factored all of this before the battle of the previous evening so it built reserves. Stock-piling resources to be used.
The wooded copse, five miles north of the fort, is the next group to be despatched. Under cover of night they will charge, quietly, without fuss or noise and they will gain that fort and destroy it.
The infection makes the head turn up. It looks through the red, bloodshot eyes at the gathering clouds so vast, filli
ng the sky as they race across the heavens.
A storm will not only provide cover but will provide water to the hosts, re-energising them.
The time is close. The solitary undead makes his way south, moving through streets, roads and lanes, across fields and all the time picking out the best cover to be used by the masses behind him. All the way down it goes, right to the countryside bordering the bay that curves round to the fort so solid and proud.
Not for long.
Forty Nine
Walking quietly down the long corridor of the top floor, the two men come to a sudden stop. Staring at each other with wide eyes, they hear something happening, happening now.
Nick doesn't breathe, it’s too early for them to come now. It’s gloomy but not night yet. The noise is awful and from all around them. A constant drumming cacophony that comes screaming out of the silence.
Slowly, Jacob loses the look of intense concern and starts to smile, a slow grin that spreads across his face. ‘Rain,’ he mutters.
As soon as the word exits his mouth, Nick recognises the sound for what it is. Sustained, intense rainfall. An old house with large windows, the drumming effect of the fat raindrops smacking into the large panes, echoes through the grand building.
On a tour of the house, Jacob pointed out the various rooms, showing Nick the layout and focussing on the route from the servants quarters where they drank coffee to the area designated for the boys.
The Doc’s rooms are noted, along with those used by Larson. The guards make use of the servants smaller bedrooms on the top floor.
They descend quickly. Moving swiftly through the house, they are joined by others coming out of rooms to head outside and see the rain. The big, double front doors have already been opened, with a small cluster of men standing in the shelter of the overhang.