The Common Cold (Book 2): A Zombie Chronicle-Cabin Fever

by Roberts, David K.

  “Well, we have a couple of shovels we can use to spear the snow ahead and around us as we make our way to the hut.” Tom suggested.

  “That means we’ll need someone with guns to cover those with the shovels, you can’t do two things at once,” Danny suggested. “Have we any electrical insulation tape?”

  “Why?” Tom asked.

  “If we wrap towels around our legs, we can secure them on with insulation tape. That sort of tape is tough and should be enough to withstand a short attack, long enough to allow someone with a gun to finish the attacker off.”

  “Neat,” Rob said. “That’s a great idea.”

  “When I was a kid playing cricket we used to do that before I could afford proper leg pads,” Danny said, remembering those heady days of summer as a child.

  “I never understood that game,” Mike said.

  “To truly get it I guess you have to grow up with it like I did. A bit like baseball for you guys.”

  “I guess,” Mike agreed. “Tom, Laurie, do you have some towels we can use?”

  “Yeah, we’ve plenty,” Laurie said and walked over to a wall cupboard. “How many of you will be out there?”

  “Probably four of us in all. Two with the shovels and two covering them,” Mike replied.

  “So that’s eight towels. Right?” she asked, holding one up and turning to Danny for his approval.

  “Yes, they look perfect. Tape, anyone?”

  “I have a couple of spools,” Chuck offered.

  “So we’re all sorted,” Danny smiled grimly as he spoke. Inside he hoped this would be defence enough for the short journey of thirty yards to the adjacent cabin.

  “Mike, you need to tell Cliff and Angela,” Bill said, having listened to the conversation up to now, wishing his eyesight was not the problem it currently was. This feeling of helplessness was not something he would ever get used to and he prayed it was only a short-term issue. If it persisted he decided in that moment that he would kill himself rather than be a burden under these desperate circumstances.

  “I’ll call him and let him know,” Janet offered. “Good thing he took a walkie talkie with him, that’s all I can say. You just focus on what you have to do. I don’t imagine they’ll want to come back over here, even with this knowledge.”

  “Probably not,” Tom agreed. “Right let’s do this.”

  Rob and Danny agreed to do the shovel work, while Tom and Mike would cover their efforts to clear a suitable area where the creatures couldn’t lurk. Chuck would remain back at the cabin covering them with his rifle. That way they had all angles sorted all the way over to the other cabin.

  “Right, it’s just gone 1600 hours, sunset is about 1700; I want this done in fifteen minutes, while it’s still light enough for us to be safe. We also have to consider making a safe landing area for BB and co. If we can clear away enough snow those bastards won’t be able to creep up on us.”

  Having checked each other’s towel armour, the round up team stepped out of the front door, out of the warmth and safety. Rob and Danny began shovelling snow away from a six foot wide straight line they had agreed upon that led straight to the front door of the girls’ cabin. In spite of the tightly wound towels, their physical movement was relatively unimpeded and they made good progress. In spite of the fire cover provided the two friends had brought their own pistols, just in case. Tom and Mike scoured the snow’s surface trying to figure out what tell-tale signs to look out for, and how easy any signs would be to see if any of the zombies had already begun to make their way towards the lengthening path. Although Zoë had said they would show as bumps that moved, considering the lay of this piece of land, the surface was already wildly uneven due to loose rocks and the roadside rubble.

  Arriving at the mid-point across the open area, they swapped roles, Rob and Danny grateful for the break. Moving snow, certainly that much, was harder than it looked. Peering around they could tell it was already getting dark, well ahead of the official sunset time; perhaps the area was being shaded by the trees and higher peaks to the west. Fifteen minutes was probably an ambitious schedule for this endeavour.

  “There!” Rob called, pointing off to his left. Digging stopped and everyone looked to see what had caught his attention. Danny peered closely and saw movement.

  “Holy crap!” he exclaimed when he realised what he was seeing. Or was he, after all it was white against white, so was he seeing things? Suggestible vision perhaps. No, there it was again. About twenty yards away. It was like a mole or gopher digging through soil, raising a track on the surface. Now he knew what he was looking for, he peered carefully at his side of the path. His hackles stood up, the goose bumps rising under his clothing; he could count four moving bumps. They had come a lot closer than he was comfortable with without being detected. Sneaky fuckers, he thought angrily. Now he was able to recognise similar movement at about twice the distance out as well. It was like watching a platoon of sub-nival inhabitants, perhaps using sound to direct them to their prey, just like moles; it almost appeared as if they were at home in this new environment. If so they were better suited to this territory than the breathers, who preferred to stay out of the icy cold weather. Will these things keep on learning and adapting, he wondered? He certainly hoped not. The other point he was wrestling with was what drove them so arduously to their prey, was it hunger or something else?

  Lining up about a foot ahead of the movement, trying to predict where the head would be, he fired. The round thudded into the snow and a creature leapt up in anger, leaping out of the snow and into the air in its enthusiasm. Three more shots from Chuck and Rob punched holes into its chest and head, throwing it backwards onto the ground. Dark gobbets of dark red gore spattered the virgin whiteness. Two more of the creatures leapt from their hiding places on each side of them and ran towards the men. It was like a silent signal had been sounded; suddenly all of the Infected leapt to the surface and ran at the men out in the open; there had to have been fifteen or so making their way to the cabin under the snow or at least lying in wait to ambush the unwary journeyman. A short skirmish ensued, the enemy coming in from both sides. The gunfire was intense, round after round casting broken and bloody bodies onto the pristine snow. Two of the Infected in the charge appeared to be using some sort of previously held knowledge, ducking and weaving their way towards their target, avoiding every bullet sent in their direction. Finally one fell in a bloody heap, its face barely recognisable as several bullets tore into it simultaneously.

  The last one remaining came close enough to fling itself at Danny, who had just dropped his now empty rifle and hurriedly picked up the shovel Tom had jettisoned when the attack started. Swinging as if playing cricket and hitting for the boundary, the edge of the blade ripped through the creature’s neck and both of them fell together in a bloody mess to the ground, the head rolling away to one side.

  “Oh, Jesus!” Danny exclaimed frantically crawling out from underneath the headless corpse. A final crack as a gun delivered a coup de grâce to a crippled zombie that was crawling its way towards Rob and finally silence reigned. Everyone was on guard now, trying to see more of them that might still be hiding before they got too close. The confidence and safety they had all felt when arriving at the assumed safe haven up in the mountains had all but dissolved with the realisation that the hunters had definitely become the hunted, the predator lacking the self-preservation instincts that would have kept even the most ferocious of animals at a distance from a person carrying a gun. All was still and silence reigned. Rob searched into the treeline but saw no further movement. Chuck ran over with night vision goggles and handed them to Mike who donned them and began a slow scan as far into the trees as he could from this distance. Still nothing. He removed them to survey the dead lying all around.

  Danny wandered over to the head and saw that it was still mouthing something, its eyes blinking. “Fucking thing still looks angry,” he said before planting the blade between its eyes, allowing its greenish-grey br
ains to spill out. All life, or whatever it was, faded from its eyes and it became just another meal for the worms. “That’s twice I’ve been on the ground today, I think I’ll stay indoors for a week to build up some more luck. Clearly I’m running low.”

  Stacey and Jackie had come to their door during the fire-fight and in the ensuing silence decided now was the moment to make their unsteady and nervous way across the snow in a terror powered race towards the men. Tom, in fear that some remainder might yet be under the sea of white, ran towards them closely followed by Danny wielding the gore spattered shovel. Raising their guns the others covered the helter-skelter, panicked rush. Grabbing an arm of each of the girls they were escorted quickly across the newly dug-out channel. Surveying the field of battle, Danny realised that these Infected had set up the perfect ambush; two concentric circles of zombies had been formed around the open area that had, up to now, been regularly walked across. If it had not been for his first shot, it was just possible that this ambush might have laid claim to several lives, a thought he quickly swept from his mind as being too awful to contemplate. Mostly he reflected on the fact that if it had not been for Brad’s timely warning of this danger, many of those alive in the cabin now would have been killed or become what they all dreaded most of all.

  With the two girls safely ensconced back in Tom’s cabin, the men continued to clear more of the area in the hope of preventing another concealed attack and to prepare for BB’s imminent arrival. With luck BB would be less than a couple of hours out by now. With the front having moved off to the west the first stars were appearing in the darkening and inky blue sky. Somehow it felt to Danny as if nature was on their side for the moment, giving them a much needed reprieve from the weather. Whatever the morning brought, they would be safe for the night. By learning more about their enemy every day they survived, they would soon be in a position to proactively protect themselves for a change. They might even be able to plan for the future rather than what had been, at least up to now, a series of knee-jerk reactions to survive against previously undiscovered behaviour and the increasing ferocity of the known enemy.

  *

  Mike sat in the helicopter with the radio switched on, waiting for BB to call up his approach. Danny sat with him, night vision goggles on and guarding their backs against the persistent threat of dead prowlers. Where had they come from in such numbers, he wondered? Maybe there was a camping ground around here for the hardier type. If they were lucky they had exterminated all those that existed in the local area by now so they might get a peaceful night tonight. That’d be a bloody miracle, he thought.

  Since this, whatever it was, had kicked off a mere four days ago, he hadn’t had a single full night’s sleep and it was telling on him. His appetite was all but gone and he’d had to count to ten to control his temper on more occasions than he cared to admit. It wasn’t the others, they were all in the same swim with the sharks, it was those things; every time he encountered them his desire to go berserker was increasing, clearly an issue of frustration. He didn’t complain though, the others must be feeling pretty much the same. Who would be the first to snap? That was the most frightening aspect of all this, and even more frightening than these bloody things, even the fast ones. Would a breakdown of one of their own lead to a gap in their defences? Would it be Cliff? His reaction had been strange - although not surprising after losing most of his family in that awful way - he was clearly an experienced military man used to horrors of war, but to segregate himself away in a different cabin from his immediate helicopter team was a surprising reaction, even though it had been one of the crew who had killed his wife while protecting him from her lustful, infected attack. Looking at Mike, Danny could see that he was mulling the same questions over in his own mind.

  The radio crackled on the cockpit speaker and BB’s familiar voice came over the airwaves.

  “Searcher calling Mother, Searcher calling Mother. Arrow.”

  Pressing the PTT Mike responded. “Mother to Searcher. Archer. Pass your message.”

  “GPS says I’m twenty minutes out. Do you want to light something up showing a suitable landing place?”

  “Wilco, twenty minutes. As soon as I hear your bird the light will come on. Over.”

  “Roger, Mother. Out.”

  Mike double-clicked the radio in acknowledgement.

  “Sounds like he made it through the storm front alright,” Mike said, sounding pleased that they had made the long journey alive and presumably in one piece. Danny just grinned. He liked BB and would be glad to see him back home - strange that he thought of using that word for the cabin. “Chuck has some big mother torches hasn’t he?” Mike asked.

  “Yes he does,” Danny replied.

  “Good. We need to light up as soon as we hear BB’s bird approaching. Just to make sure we don’t get any surprises when we’re not watching, let’s get as many out here with guns as we can and more with night vision goggles to monitor the approaches.”

  Stepping back into the warmth of the once again crowded cabin, Mike explained what was needed to help BB come in safely. Mike picked up two red towels he would use as marshal sticks, guiding BB down to the ground. Tom and Rob agreed to monitor the area using night vision goggles while Chuck and Danny piled outside with guns to make sure the landing went off without a hitch. With the snow now cleared in a large area around the cabin the chances of them being ambushed again was slight; surely there couldn’t be too many left out there for now.

  After a few minutes the low throb of helicopter rotors could be felt drumming on the air. Soon the sound became directional and BB’s helicopter could be heard making a circular approach, just as Mike had recommended, so confusing their direction of travel to any strangers that might be listening on the ground.

  Suddenly three torches came on pointing at a single point on the ground, the landing place. The intense blue-white LED lights reflected off the now thin layer of snow, hopefully enough to guide BB in to the right place. Danny peered into the sky and could dimly make out a dark blob where the helicopter soaked up the moonlight causing a black hole. Suddenly the landing lights came on and now Mike was illuminated in their bright glare, the red towels flapping in the wind and directing BB into the landing spot. Gently kissing the ground the enormous helicopter came to a rest. The engines began to spool down immediately and the side door opened.

  “Shit!” Danny cried. At that moment one of the torch lights had caught the shape of a body lying prone just behind the fuselage. It must have been on the aircraft as it hadn’t been there a moment ago. He ran over to investigate and before anyone realised what he was doing he fired a shot into its head. “Shine your torch over here Janet,” he cried to his wife. It had been her light that had led to this discovery. Running over to him, her torch revealed what he had just shot: a zombie had somehow managed to grab hold of the helicopter’s wheel strut and had hung on for the whole journey, presumably from the refuelling site attack.

  “The damn thing was still moving,” Danny explained as others came over to see what had happened. “Looks like even extreme cold is also no barrier to these bastards.”

  BB stood beside him and gazed at the creature. He’d never even detected it was there. “Will you help me get it off?” he asked Danny. The thing’s arms were still tightly wrapped around the wheel strut, frozen in place.

  “Sure, I’ll get a shovel.” He raced back to the cabin and returned after a moment holding a couple of shovels. Between them they levered the creature off and threw it onto the ever-increasing pile of corpses off to one side.

  *

  Being the last two outside, BB and Danny closed up the helicopter and secured the doors, then went inside. Conversation levels were high - it was amazing to see how the hope provided by new survivors rubbed off on the rest of the group. Life was just one long party, Danny thought sardonically.

  Expecting to introduce the two new arrivals to the rest of the survivors, BB was not very surprised to see them already accepted
as part of the group; the women were clucking around them, determined to make the additions feel at home as quickly as possible. From what he could tell, they were consoling Emily on the loss of her family. The men had separated from the gathering and were talking in low tones. He walked over and joined them.

  “Welcome back, buddy,” Tom said enthusiastically, shaking his friend’s hand.

  “Good to be back,” he replied. “That was sure as hell a frightening moment when we took off from the refuelling point. Those bastards were creeping up on us under the snow; I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing. And as for that fucker that held on…”

  “They’re tenacious bastards, that’s for sure. Your warning came just in time, I can tell ya,” Chuck said. BB cocked his head questioningly; he had not yet been informed of the skirmish that had followed his earlier warning.

  “They attacked you?” he asked; he’d hoped his was an isolated incident, perhaps something learnt in their previous lives as soldiers.

  “Yep,” Chuck replied. “They pretty much surrounded us on all sides. Since you left we’ve killed some thirty five or forty by now. You saw the pile out there.”

  “I did,” BB reflected, his face darkening. “I got an idea while I was in SF. We landed at a VOR radio station once I’d pulled the girls out of the house.”

  “What’s a VOR radio station?” Chuck asked.

  “It’s a radio navigation beacon for pilots. Anyway, it was secure because it was surrounded by chain link fencing. I watched as some of those zombie bastards came for us but couldn’t work out how to get around it. There was even a gate in front of them but they didn’t seem to understand it at all. Perhaps we could do something similar around here; it would allow us easily to see what’s beyond it, there’d be no hiding places, and it wouldn’t stop a bullet either which means we can stay this side of it if we need to, killing the bastards in safety. What do you guys think?”