The closer we got to where Jacks said the second camp was the more zombies we saw. All heading in the same direction as us.
I stroked the handle of my knife, now back at my waist. Feeling reassurance from its presence. I picked up the binoculars again to check them out. Most were dressed in what looked like night clothes. Some just wore tatters, and no shoes on their feet. Not that it bothered them in the slightest. They didn’t feel anything but hunger.
“Turn right here” Jacks pointed to where he wanted John to pull off the road onto a dirt track.
We followed the bumpy road uphill for at least a quarter of a mile, before Jacks instructed John to pull into a small clearing.
“This is perfect, from the road we won’t be seen but from here we should be able to see everything that we need to.” Jacks got out of the truck and walked to the edge of the mountain.
The rest of us followed, the military men behind us kept guard over the area. Jacks held out his hand for the binoculars which I handed to him.
“Oh shit” Jacks muttered, his face had suddenly gone pale. He handed me the binoculars and walked back to the car, he got in and just sat there, not saying another word.
I held them in front of my face and immediately wished that I hadn’t. Zombies had overrun the camp. Men women and children were running blindly, not looking where they were going but rather at what was following them. I watched as a woman and a child got trapped against a wall, three zombies closed in on them. A soldier came from nowhere, and took them out, pushing the mother and child into a door that had just opened before disappearing inside himself. I gave a sigh of relief that they got away but my heart broke for those who were not so lucky. There were bodies strewn everywhere, some were even starting to get back up, ready to join the ranks of the undead. I closed my eyes and held out the binoculars for Adam to take. Now that I listened I could hear the screams and cries for help all mixed together with the excited moaning of the zombies as they chased their fast food.
I too walked back to the car, and got in.
“What can we do?” I desperately wanted to help those people.
“I don’t know…” Jacks Stammered. His calm had left him.
“Well think dammit!” I screamed at him, hitting the back of his head rest.
“They were my friends, I convinced them to leave the first camp and come to this one.” The emotion in his voice was heart-breaking.
I suddenly understood, he was losing people that he loved. All rationalisation had gone the moment he saw the dead tearing through his friends, he was struggling to focus.
“Ok I think I have something. Where does this road lead?”
“Uh, just down the other side and round behind camp.”
I jumped out of the car “Everyone get in, John I want you to drive around to the back of their compound. I’m going to try to draw the zombies this way, enough of them that you can get some of those people to safety. Ill follow you down” I pulled my back pack out of the foot well in the back.
“I’ll stay with you” Adam jogged towards me.
“No, go with them, keep an eye on Jacks. I’m not sure he will do what needs to be done.” I said quietly. He nodded and hugged me tightly. “Be safe G”
It was my turn to nod, I wouldn’t make any promises, this was going to be extremely dangerous for us all. But if we could save even one of those survivors it would all be worth it.
My plan was simple, wait for them to get as far away as possible, then I would fire off a few rounds to get the zombies attention. I hoped that once several had seen me and heard the gun fire that the hoard would follow. Leaving just a few stragglers in camp that we could dispose of easily.
“Are you sure about this?” Jacks asked through his open window.
“Yes, you go on ahead, try to free wheel it down the hill to minimise sound. I’ll make as much noise as I can to try to draw them up the hill. You go around back and fit as many people in as you can. Just keep me a seat. I shall follow shortly” I tapped the top of the car twice to let them know that they should leave.
“Thank you, George,” Jacks called as they rolled away.
The guys in the second truck nodded as they passed by. I counted to 40 slowly closing my eyes. I tried to drown out the dying calls of the people below.
I saw the car that held John, Adam and Jacks, moving slowly around back. They flashed their lights once to let me know that they were in position. The second truck had held back a little. Ready to provide back up if needed.
I took a deep breath, before I could chicken out and fired a shot into the air.
I watched as one by one their heads turned towards the sound, I stood in plain view of them hoping that at least one of them could see me or even smell me. Who knew how they worked? I let off another shot.
Then waved my arms around like a mad man, their groans got louder, their movements with quicker and they came at me with purpose. I looked through the binoculars, the first line of zombies seemed to have a lot of damage to them, they were decaying a lot quicker. My first thought was that I was glad that I wasn’t down wind and that I couldn’t smell them. My second thought was if they were decaying, then maybe within time they would just rot away. Back into the earth, twice dead. It gave me a glimmer of hope that we could outlive this. That we could start to rebuild our world.
I watched them for a few minutes, trying to climb the hill, one step forwards then about three back. They only started to gain as the ones behind climbed over the ones in front that had fallen. Even then it was slow progress, they would fall over limbs, get up and then fall over something else. But they never took their eyes off me. Their lunch for today.
I moved away slowly backwards, making sure that they could still see me. I turned and looked into the trees behind me. I hoped that they would continue walking that way, thinking that I had also.
Then I had an idea, I ran as far as I could whilst still being visible to the road and hung the jacket from my back pack on the tree. I was hoping that it would draw them into the trees and away from the compound.
Then I ran as quickly as I could down the hill, hidden in the tree line adjacent to the path that my friends had taken just minutes earlier. Not looking where I was going I tripped over something, falling hard and winding myself.
I rolled over and gasped for breath, my chest burned. My knees stung from where the gravel had shredded my trousers and cut into them.
I looked around, wildly shaking my head from side to side, convinced that I had fallen over a legless zombie like the one I’d killed earlier that day. And that any moment I would feel its jaws clamp around my leg and tear at my flesh. The game over for me.
But it wasn’t a zombie, it was a man. Well the body of a man anyway. He wore a doctor’s coat, black trousers and smart black shoes. I shuffled away until I could catch a breath, all the while keeping an eye on the body and on my surroundings. I didn’t want any nasty surprises.
By the time my breath came back, the body still had not moved. I walked closer to it and saw why; it had a bullet hole in its head. But I couldn’t see any sign of a gun around the body, and no obvious or visible signs that he had been bitten.
Had the good doctor been brought out here and murdered or had he simply taken his own life and the weapon had been picked up by another survivor. All these questions I had and they would never be answered.
I had a quick look around in the bushes and trees around the body to see if there was any sign of a bag. Not finding one I continued down to my friends, vowing that one day I would sit down and try to remember some of these lost souls. I would write about them in the hopes that one day in the future, they may teach children about our struggles during the apocalypse of 2015-????? Who knew how long it was going to last.
As I came to the bottom of the hill, I could see my friends fighting off a few undead that were left with various hand-held weapons. No guns and as little sound as possible so as not to draw the horde back to us.
I turned
my jog into a run, panting hard. I really need to get fit, was my last thought before I too joined in the fray.
Chapter 11
The fight was short but hard and incredibly messy. Putrefied blood, guts and brains were spewed across the floor. I had to concentrate hard on the one that I was fighting so as not to lose my stomach contents over the floor. I hadn’t realised how queasy I was until I saw the inside of a human being.
It lunged at me and I lashed out quickly with my knife, slashing it across the arm and causing it to stumble a few paces away. I spun towards it, the deep gash in his arm not doing anything to slow it down. It came at me again, I stuck out my foot to trip it up and then thought better of it. It could have fallen and bitten me through my trousers. So instead I dropped my back pack at its feet and watched it fall to the ground. This one was quick, freshly turned I thought. Within seconds it was trying to get back up. I put my foot on the back of its head and pushed the knife through its temple. It was harder this time than the first, not as easy as they showed in the movies. However, my blade was still sharp and I managed to get the job done, trying my hardest not to hear the tearing, squelching sound as I gave the walker its peace.
I got up quickly ready for the next one, this time it was a child, ambling towards me. Dressed in a light blue shirt and now bloodstained jeans. Its throat had been ripped open and I could see inside, blood and bone, muscles and sinew hung from the wound. He had a bracelet on, the type you buy your kids and get their names engraved on them, it was made of a navy braid and the nameplate was silver.
He could have been an older Cameron, I couldn’t bring myself to hurt him. Closer and closer he came at me, making a kind of gurgling noise from his throat from which blood still ran.
“I can’t, I can’t” I cried, tears running down my face. Not sure if I was warning my friends, or telling the dead boy or hell, even telling myself.
He lifted his arms as he got closer, ready to grab onto me and make sure I didn’t run away. I couldn’t run, my feet were rooted to the floor. This was someone’s baby boy, they had held him close and somebody had kept him safe and well dressed for this long.
What the hell had gone wrong at camp 2?
“George” Adam, came out of nowhere and swung his baseball bat, hitting the child clean off its feet.
“No!” I called out before I could stop myself. Reaching out my arm as if to help the child.
Adam brought his bat down twice upon the child’s head, caving in its skull. Every sickening bone crush made me wince and feel physically sick.
“George?” Adam looked at me, concern marring his handsome features.
“I’m sorry Ad, I… and Cameron, and” I couldn’t form the sentence. But I didn’t need to. He got up and pulled me into a tight bear hug.
“It’s ok G, I get it. I got your back man. Come on let’s get inside.”
“Ok.” We started to follow the rest of our group towards the main building where we hoped there were survivors.
“Oh, and Ad, Thanks man” I clapped him on the shoulder and lined behind the rest of the men.
“Right, I’m not sure what we will find in here men. The layout is similar to our own at camp three. I’d like us all to stick together and have each other’s backs. We have left our two drivers in the vehicles just at the back of the building ready for a quick getaway, should we need it” Jacks told us in a hushed voice.
“Right, let’s go and see what we find” Adam replied.
He reached out and knocked the door, tap tap tap then paused then tap tap again. I assumed it was to prove to any survivors inside that we were not the walking dead.
“Hello?” came a small frightened voice.
It was female but I couldn’t tell whether old or young.
“Hi there, this is Lt Jacks. We’ve come to help you but we gotta move quick”
We could hear a discussion behind the door, before another stronger deeper male voice returned “Danny? Daniel Jacks?”
“Yes, it’s me, we’re looking for Captain Cooper”
We exchanged relieved looks when we heard the door locks click.
We hurried into a small entrance, which used to be a waiting room of some sorts. People of all ages were sat on the chairs and on blankets on the floor.
An older man, with very dark skin and eyes so dark that at first, I thought they were black came and hugged Jacks tightly. He too wore a military uniform.
“It’s so good to see you. These things have been attacking us for three days. We have lost a lot of people and we think all our livestock. Ripped to bits. We couldn’t get to them quick enough.” His eyes went blank as he stared into space, reliving the horrors that he had seen.
“Are you all clean here? Have you seen the captain?” Lt Jacks asked his voice hurried.
I turned to look around, people were crying and hugging each other. A few had on bloody clothes but I couldn’t tell if any of them had been bitten.
“Clean?” the man asked, confused.
“Yeah Frank, I mean has anyone been bitten or scratched?” Jacks explained.
“No, no of course not” he looked at us but his sincerity didn’t reach his eyes. He was scared and rightly so.
“Do you have access to vehicles and fuel?” I asked, I wanted to get out of here and look for our friends.
“Uh yes, they are kept around the back.” He pointed to some navy double doors behind him.
Of course, they were, I shook my head. “Do you know if it’s safe?”
“We don’t know, not for sure. Its why we are all still holed up here.”
Well there was a little honesty at least.
“George?” Jacks nodded right twice with his head indicating that he wanted to speak to me.
“I’m going to take John and Frank and look to see if they have a vehicle large enough to take them all. Can you and Adam make your way to the canteen storage area and collect what you can from there? We don’t have the manpower to make this compound safe at the moment.”
“Ok”
“Right, here’s the plan…” Jacks continued with our plan as everyone else listened.
“Will we be able to get our belongings?” one woman asked.
I looked to Jacks who nodded his head. He sent most of the adults along with two of the men from the other car. Leaving in the reception area, two women, and old couple already carrying small tan coloured backpacks and around seven children.
“Ben, can you stay here and look after these whilst we go do our thing?” Jacks smiled.
“Yep no problem boss. I mean sir” Ben smiled back and held up his baseball bat, already stained red and brown with blood and other fluids I’d rather not think about. He walked over and locked the doors that the others had just left through and tilted the vertical blinds once again.
I nodded to Ben and indicated that Adam should go before me, he followed Jacks through the door who followed John and Frank.
We entered a long white corridor with several navy doors lining it on both sides.
“Right, is any one injured?” I heard Ben ask from behind me before the doors closed.
“I just don’t know how it happened…” I heard Frank telling the story from up in front.
I zoned out and concentrated on my surroundings, after the second door on the right was a smaller corridor and at the end of that was a fire exit. These days it was always good to know where the exits were.
We stopped about halfway down the corridor in front of two double doors, that had glass panelling in the top half.
“This is the canteen boys, the storage room is through the kitchen and on the right, you should find backpacks on the bottom shelf. Be careful.”
I nodded, pulling out my knife, I took the one door as Adam took the other. We stood facing each other. I knocked on the door loudly, hoping that if there were any undead then they would show themselves.
We waited a few minutes until we could no longer hear the voices of Frank, Jacks and John.
The
n we entered slowly, each of us opening the doors wide. Like a cheesy zombie movie in slow motion.
We stood and listened but couldn’t hear anything. So, we continued towards the kitchen and to the back room.
It was lined with shelves of tins and dried pasta and rice. They also had a few crates of bottled water. It was like a goldmine. “Take everything you can carry and more. Hopefully Jacks and the others will come back this way and help us to take more supplies.”
We filled the eight worn backpacks with as many supplies as they would take and placed them by the main doors ready to be taken.
I went back through the kitchen, shoving what I could into my pockets; a few breakfast bars and some toothpaste; Adam copied, once we were full, we went back to the main doors and picked up three backpacks each. One on our backs one on our front and one in our hands. They were so heavy with tins in that I struggled to walk. There was no sign of Jacks or John in the corridor so Adam and I walked back to the reception. The rest of the people had also returned carrying their own back packs.
Adam took one person from each family back to the kitchen to help with the extra backpacks and water. He allowed them two tins each for their backpacks and a bottle of water for each person. We kept a crate which Ben and the other military guys took back along with the back packs of food to their truck which was the largest.
The rest of the water we shared out between ourselves, Jacks and John returned whilst Frank came around the front in a large SUV with huge bars across the front.
We met him out front, now on high alert, checking in every direction, just waiting for the horde to return.
“Lee, Tom can you go and get the other truck? We’ve checked it out and all is good” Frank called out to two middle-aged men wearing jeans and checked shirts. They just nodded and turned walking away without saying a word.
“Frank, you clear on where camp three is?” Jacks asked helping the old couple into the SUV, another man and two women with two kids got into the back also.
“Uh yeah I think so” Frank did not look like he knew.
I looked at Adam who shrugged “I’ll go back with you” he spoke up.
George (Book 2): The Long Road Ahead Page 10