The One Percent (Episode 2): The One Percent

by Heller, Erik P.

  “Yes!” she said as if that was some fancy deductive reasoning on my part. It wasn’t. I just wanted to get the hell out of there in one piece, and the tractor was the best chance we had of doing that. I remembered back to me blathering on about being tested the night before. Me and my big mouth because lo and behold here it was, my, or rather our, first big test.

  “So, how many ways out?”

  “The front door, then there’s a side door out of the kitchen where you can get out to the front but that’s where all the bloody things are getting through from the back.” She sounded so panicky that I felt obliged to give her a hug and tell her everything was going to be OK.

  “Show me,” I said.

  We both crept down the stairs as quietly as possible and she showed me where the door was. Although it was locked, it didn’t look very substantial, but the door opened out into a narrow passage between the house and one of the outbuildings, so the Groaners wouldn’t be able to build up much pressure on it. I put my ear to the door and listened. All I could hear was an occasional shuffle and groan as another one reached the front.

  “Right,” I said, “this is the plan. I’ll go back upstairs and lean out of the window of the bedroom on the other end of the house. That’s your parents’ room, right, the one you showed me?”

  Daisy nodded.

  “The Groaners will all head up to the other end of the house. You keep an eye out of the front window, then when they’ve all shifted, do a runner out of the door, dash to the tractor, do your thing and kill ’em all and off we can jolly well go. What do you think?”

  “It might work.”

  “It will, Daisy, I promise, just don’t attract any attention when you look out through the curtains.”

  “OK.”

  “Off you go then.”

  Daisy stepped forward and gave me a very long and exceptionally pleasant kiss on the lips, a squeeze, and off she went.

  I headed back off upstairs and into the bedroom which still smelled of old folks, stripped a pillowcase off the bed, and pushed open the window. Because it faced out the back which was overflowing with Groaners, I didn’t hang about too long. I yelled a couple of times and flapped around the pillowcase but all it did was attract a few dozen latecomers to the party who were mostly about to join the back of the queue. The couple that were already heading for the gap between the house and the outbuilding just seemed to carry on serenely the way they were heading.

  I shut the window and trapped the pillowcase, so it fluttered in the breeze, grabbed another one from the bed, and dashed across the hall into one of the other rooms.

  I did the same thing again, yelling and shouting at the top of my voice, leaning out of the window so I could see if it was working. It was. The Groaners out front, including the two that had just arrived, all started to drag themselves across, reaching up their arms like some strange undead group of worshippers at the church of Frank while unleashing an unearthly groan and growl of frustration that breakfast was being announced but not served.

  I turned my head back into the room and yelled at Daisy to go. I may have sworn, I don’t remember exactly. I couldn’t hear what was going on downstairs over the noise, but I did see Daisy creep out of the house and stay as far away from the Groaners as she could until she broke cover and dashed for the tractor.

  I can honestly say I’d never been happier to hear an engine start or see a cloud of diesel fumes take to the air. Daisy backed up the tractor, then drove straight at the crowd under the window. She hit into the back of them with a sickening thud and propelled at least half a dozen straight through the now broken downstairs window. Lots more were turned to mangled meat when she ran over them, then she backed up again and came at them from the side, shovelling undead bodies out of the way, and crushing the ones she missed with the huge tyres on the tractor

  I was shouting and yelling my encouragement until I heard a sound behind me.

  The half dozen Groaners that had been bashed through the window must have had a soft landing and were now slowly climbing the stairs. I ran to the door and closed it then pushed the bed up against it in the vain hope that it would keep the Groaners out, but within seconds the pounding started. The door was solid wood, but the Groaners seemed to make mincemeat out of it, and soon two grim heads were sticking through the wood like undead Jack Nicholsons telling me that Johnny was there. I could bloody see they were there for myself.

  I went back out to the window where Daisy was just killing Groaners for fun now and shouted to try and get her attention but with the door shut and engine going she couldn’t hear a thing. I grabbed the cover off the bed and threw it down. When she saw it floating down, she looked up. I made a sign to cut the engine which she did, and I yelled down to explain what kind of pickle I was in. She didn’t bother to shout back up, just doing a thumbs up instead. She started up again, backed up, then lifted the bucket high and drove it straight into the house.

  I dived back and to the side as the window and part of the wall came smashing into the room, then I heard her yelling. I crunched back to the gaping hole and listened.

  “Get in the bucket,” she yelled.

  Now, the bucket was at this stage in a hell of a state, covered in blood, gore, bits of Groaner meat, more blood, guts, pieces of skull with hair still attached, and even more blood.

  I had a choice, jump in and swim, or stay where I was and risk the Groaners, with their shoulders now through the door, and their arms tearing at the bed, ripping me to shreds, eating my intestines first and the rest of me for dessert.

  I climbed in, standing with my feet on the bottom edge and waving over the top edge so she knew I was in there. She evidently got the message because she backed away and lowered the bucket to the ground. I jumped out, ran quickly around the side while she unlatched the door, then I was in. I scrunched down into the tiny space and slammed the door behind me just as a Groaner smashed their hand into it.

  “Maybe we should go,” Daisy said. I leaned back to see more Groaners coming down the side of the house, then one fell out of the destroyed window upstairs, landing head first with a clang, flailing his arms, on one of the teeth on the bucket. It didn’t move again.

  The crowd was growing again by then, so I said calmly, “Let’s get the hell out of here.” OK, I actually screamed it like a girl, but Daisy got the message not to mention earache from me yelling it at her from two feet away.

  Daisy backed up again, dispatching a few more Groaner’s, then raised the bucket and folded it so it could act as both a battering ram and protection for the engine compartment right behind it. Then she floored it right at the gate.

  There was a massive jolt as the wooden gate fragmented into scraps and kindling, and we were on our way along the lane with no map, no spare clothes, no food or water, and no idea what our route was supposed to be, bar the sparsest of memories.

  Still. Could have been worse. We could both have been Groaners, but we weren’t. We were alive and kicking butt. Well, Daisy was. I was just shaking like a leaf.

  She looked over at me, and I at her, loving her beautiful smiling eyes.

  “Told you it would work,” I said once I could speak.

  IX0X0X0X0X0X0XI

  “So,” I yelled. “What next?” The sun had yet to rise fully over the rolling countryside of Berkshire, and we were trundling along with We Will Rock You pounding out of the speakers as we went. I did wonder at the sense of having loud music on, but it did sound better than the deep rumble of the engine.

  Daisy was right about the suspension and the lack of space. I was already aching from having to keep my legs tucked up under me and my backside was sore from bouncing around, but all things considered I was happy.

  We had made our escape from Daisy’s farm when surrounded by Groaners, and we were heading away from Newbury. We did have a couple of main roads to cross but hopefully that should be straightforward.

  “Petrol station?” Daisy suggested.

  “Are we running l
ow on fuel already?”

  “No, not yet, but we should be able to get a map book and maybe scavenge some food and a few drinks.”

  It was a sound enough idea, but I worried about going anywhere where people might have been before everything kicked off. I mean, I knew we would be going through some villages and the like and there were bound to be a few around but a petrol station? That spelled trouble to me.

  Before I had much of a chance to think too much more about that prospect I saw a sign coming up for the junction with a main road, the A4. I suggested that Daisy might want to shut off the music and slow down a bit as we approached. The green hedges obscured the view to both sides, so we had no way of knowing what was lying ahead of us. Before we reached the junction, it was clear that it had, at one stage, been completely blocked, but now there was a path wide enough for us to get through without us having to go to the trouble of shifting cars out of the way.

  To the left, the road ran toward Hungerford and on toward the west country, but it was completely snarled up as far as the eye could see. It had always been a bottleneck on that road, even after the M4 motorway was built just a little to the north.

  Now it looked like it was going to be a bottleneck for ever. And for the many dead bodies that were lying around with various bites and wounds, this would likely be their final resting place in memorium.

  Daisy rolled to a stop where the opening in the traffic had been forced. Several dozen Groaners were wandering around on the road, randomly stumbling along with no obvious sense of purpose but they were all a good distance away, mere matchsticks on the eastbound carriageway which was almost empty from what I could see. Clearly everyone had the same idea, heading away from the highly populated south east. I guessed the situation was likely to be similar on all the major routes, making our choice of sticking to back lanes and minor roads seem like a stroke of genius.

  Daisy started to edge the tractor through the gap when I yelled at her to stop.

  A hundred yards down the road, almost as if it had parked there like that, the horsebox lay on its side in a layby. The back doors were open, and from what I could see, every window had been smashed open.

  Daisy looked at me, and I looked right back. It was the very last thing I’d expected to see here. I could only think they were trying to find a way around Newbury before heading to London, but they hadn’t made it very far.

  “Should we check it out?” I asked as the tractor engine ticked over noisily.

  “I think we have to, Frank. Don’t we?”

  “We do. Why not back the tractor down alongside and I’ll jump down to see if anyone’s inside? They might just be waiting for somebody to come along. If anything crops up, you’ll be able to get away and turn up that road we were going to go along.” I nodded at the narrow lane opposite.

  Daisy did exactly that, dropping the tractor right alongside the horsebox. I wasn’t hopeful. If anybody was in there, they would surely have heard our approach, and would be signalling like crazy.

  I didn’t like it. How could it have ended up on its side just there?

  When Daisy stopped she wound down her window and looked at the wreck as best she could.

  “Can’t see anything,” she said. “Be careful.”

  “Is there anything in here I could use as a weapon?”

  That was one of the other disadvantages of having made a quick escape. All the tools and knives we’d gathered were still in the backpacks we’d both made ready.

  Daisy reached around behind her seat and pulled out a toolbox. She had a bit of a root around and came up with a hammer. Not ideal, but it would have to do. I really hoped I wouldn’t have to use it, but like the boy scout I always wanted to be but was never allowed to be by my parents, I liked to be always prepared.

  I checked both ways, and the road was almost clear of Groaners, so I opened my door and jumped down on to the tarmac, getting quite a fright when a family of Groaners in the car next to us began to bang and scratch pathetically at the glass. It had been warm and sunny the day before and these Groaners were not in a good way. The car was already infested with flies that had eaten away at the eyes of one of them and crawled and clustered around every visible orifice in their frenzy to find a way inside to lay their eggs.

  Being born and bred in the country my tolerance for the things was reasonably high. They were just a fact of life but whenever an animal had died in a field I had always hated the way flies did that, crawling in through the mouth and the ears, leaving their disgusting wriggling offspring to begin yet another generation.

  Seeing them at work on a human being, albeit a dead but reanimated human being, changed my mind about the things. Flies are the spawn of the devil himself, I decided there and then.

  The smell that tainted the air suggested that this wasn’t the only car like it and indeed as I looked along the line of traffic, most of the cars nearest had a scrabbling occupant or two, where further along, dark shapes sat waiting patiently to find a way out of their metal coffins and unleash their hideous forms upon the world.

  Trying to ignore the muffled groans and scratching, I approached the horsebox, giving it a wide berth until I could see inside.

  I dropped down onto my haunches and put a hand across my mouth.

  Daisy shouted from the tractor, leaning out of the window, and craning her head so she could see me past the huge bulk of the rear tyre. I couldn’t make out what she said but my eyes were fixed on the front seat of the horsebox.

  Held in place by her seatbelt, but with her head lolling over to one side was Penny, her face had been all but blown away and was covered in running, crawling, buzzing insects. Glass fragments were scattered all around on the road and on her clothes, which were covered in blood and the parts of her face that hadn’t been completely blasted away. I was transfixed by the sight of such a beautiful young girl who had so much to live for treated so cruelly by whoever had done this.

  Much as I didn’t want to, I needed to check inside to see if anyone else was in there.

  Daisy yelled again, then cut the engine and jumped out on her side of the tractor, squeezing through the narrow gap she had left.

  With the engine off, the sound of the Groaners in the cars came to the forefront, and the only other sound beside the odd bird call, was the strangely rhythmic ticking and clicking as the engine on the tractor started to cool down.

  “What is it, Frank?”

  I stepped to one side to let her see. I didn’t trust myself to speak the words in any cogent way.

  When she saw Penny, she clapped her hand over her mouth, let out a single sob, and said something I couldn’t make out.

  After a few seconds, she took away her hand and wiped at her eyes.

  “Who would do something like that, Frank?”

  I shrugged. I had no idea.

  “I need to check the inside, see if anyone else is in there.”

  Daisy nodded. “Help me to get her out first, we can’t just leave the poor girl like that.”

  We pulled Penny out through the windscreen, creating a cloud of angry black flies and buzzing wasps as we moved her, then we carried her body away and laid it on the grass at the side of the road. The flies followed on behind.

  Daisy jumped back in the tractor while I looked inside the horsebox. There was blood inside but nobody else. Most of the gear we had helped them pack away was gone too. All that was left was a couple of bottles of water which I grabbed, one large backpack, and Penny’s pink backpack which I also picked up. When I emptied it out, the whole of what was left of Penny’s life was in there. A few clothes. A spare bottle of Daisy’s shampoo. A hair brush and a handful of other personal items.

  They meant nothing to me as I sat and turned them over in my hand while I listened to Daisy at work with the tractor. I guessed at what she was doing and when I picked up all of Penny’s things and shoved them back in the pack, I resolved that they should stay with her and remain undisturbed by any future scavengers. It might not mean m
uch but she deserved to have her things with her in death.

  As I walked back beside the horsebox with her pack in my hand I could see that a couple of the Groaners had begun to take an interest in the movement of the tractor and had started to make their way toward us. We weren’t going to have enough time to give Penny a send-off that was fitting for her, but, at least, in her makeshift grave on the verge of the A4, she would be able to rest in peace.

  As gently as we could we laid her body in the trench Daisy had dug, then I placed her pack in on top of the body.

  Daisy jumped back up into the tractor, and using the bucket, began to drag the chalky earth back into the trench.

  I stood to one side and slid my hands into my pockets while I watched. My fingers touched something solid and I slid out the locket I had found the night before. I signalled up to Daisy to stop, while I put the locket in the grave with her.

  I hadn’t got a pen and paper to add a note about who the grave belonged to if it was found later, but then I had an idea. I reached back into my pocket again and pulled out a handful of change. I took a one penny piece, placed it into the locket, and closed it tight, then I lay down, hanging over the edge of the grave, and carefully slid the locket into the pocket of Penny’s jacket.

  Then I stood up and stepped back while Daisy covered her over.

  By the time I got around and into the cab again, making sure that I slammed the cab door shut, the Groaners that had been heading our way had almost reached us. I didn’t pay them much attention, but Daisy was staring at them out of the windscreen.

  “Look,” she said.

  I looked through the windscreen at the nearest Groaner, but it didn’t look like anyone I knew.

  “No, the one behind.”

  I switched to look at the next Groaner and saw the shambling, drooling, teeth-snapping form of Mrs Banton, Jean, heading blindly toward us.

  I could see the bloodstain on the shoulder of her prim blouse where something had ripped through the cloth and taken away a large lump of her flesh. The rest of her clothes were a tattered mess and were hanging off her tattered flesh. I couldn’t see any evidence of a gunshot wound but I’d seen people bitten then turn within half an hour, so the accident could have happened just a short while ago. I doubted it because the engine of the horsebox was cold when I checked it over.