Ghostland_A Zombie apocalypse Novel

by Shaun Whittington

  “But we don’t know for sure if our cities were hit like that,” said Simon. “Not for sure. Of course, I never saw anything like that because I lived in a small town, but I definitely heard bombs being dropped, but they weren’t nukes, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

  “I’m telling you, according to this soldier, that’s what happened. Why would this man lie to me, you dig what I’m sayin’?”

  “I suppose it could have happened.” Simon began to scratch his head. “I lived thirty miles from the nearest city, so I wouldn’t have known.”

  “The lingering radiation hazard could represent a grave threat for as long as one to five years after the attack,” said Yoler. “So if what you say is true, then surely we should be suffering.”

  “Not necessarily.” Donald shook his head “Predictions of the amount and levels of the radioactive fallout are difficult because of several factors. Beyond the blast radius of the exploding weapons there would be areas, hot spots, if you like, the survivors could not enter because of radioactive contamination from long-lived radioactive isotopes. That’s why I don’t like moving about. And it’s certainly the reason I don’t wanna go down south or anywhere else. Look at where we are. We’re twenty-five to thirty miles away from Derby, our smallest city. And we’re twenty-five to thirty miles away from Birmingham the other way. If nukes have been used, then Birmingham definitely got it.”

  “And on that bullshit light note,” Yoler finished the rest of the soup and stood to her feet, “I think I might go and stretch my legs.”

  “It’s not bullshit,” Donald snapped.

  “I think it is.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  They had spent fifteen minutes chatting around the fire, and Yoler was having a little stroll around the area. Others had now decided to move away from the dying fire and Yoler clocked the dark handsome man that was called Gavin. She leaned against a tree trunk and smiled at the man. He smiled back. He stepped over to her and introduced himself, but she reminded him that they had briefly met at the pond. He was dark in features, handsome, and seemed polite, almost shy.

  “How long have you been with this lot?” Yoler asked him.

  He laughed shyly, making Yoler’s heart melt, and said, “A while.”

  “He seems quite a character,” she whispered and nodded in the direction of Donald. He was still sitting down and talking to Simon.

  “Er ... yeah,” Gavin cackled. “You could say that.”

  “Not too sure about his theory.” Yoler glared at Gavin and was strongly attracted to him. “What are your thoughts?”

  Gavin hunched his shoulders. He took a look over, as if he didn’t want to be heard and was fearful of Donald, and said in a soft tone, “I think it’s a global thing. I think everyone is affected.”

  “So what is he on about with nuclear hits on cities, boats along the English channel—”

  “He has his own theory. Everybody has their own theory.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “I go by what we were told in the first couple of weeks, until the power died, of course. But I think we’re all fucked. Maybe NATO or the RAF did bomb certain areas in the beginning, but ... I think the world has changed for good. We’re alone.”

  Yoler smiled and felt her face flushing. “So ... what’s your story?”

  Gavin looked perplexed and screwed his eyes up. “Story? What do you mean?”

  “Come on,” snickered Yoler. “Everybody has a story. We’re almost twelve months into this ... whatever it is, and you don’t have a story?”

  “I suppose it’s like everybody else’s,” said Gavin. He dropped his head and seemed reluctant to continue. “I had a family, a girlfriend, a mum and dad, but now they’re gone. At least I have Hayley.”

  “That’s your sister, right?”

  He nodded.

  “You don’t give much away, do you?”

  Gavin flashed Yoler a smile. “We’ve only just met, and anyway, you haven’t told me anything about yourself.”

  “True,” she laughed. She turned around and could see Helen, Donald and Simon talking about something and turned her attention back to Gavin. She opened her mouth, about to tell Gavin about her journey, but he had interrupted her and began talking.

  “The first weeks seem like years ago now,” he began. He folded his arms and leaned against a tree. “I suppose it started off the same way it did for most people.”

  “I know what you mean.” Yoler nodded. “What did you do for a living, before...?”

  “I don’t think it matters now,” Gavin sighed.

  “And your girlfriend?”

  Gavin shook his head. “She never made it.”

  Yoler opened her mouth to ask how she never made it, but then realised her question would be deemed as insensitive.

  Gavin sighed and added, “We’re from down south, Hayley and I,” he began. “From Bristol. We thought the further north we headed, the better it’d be. We only managed this far.”

  Yoler nodded. “I thought your accent was different.”

  Gavin continued, “When we finally left … me and my sister got as far as the next town and then we came across a horde.” Gavin shook his head and a thin smile developed on his features.

  “What’s so funny?” Yoler asked him.

  “You know, one on one, even two on one, those things are easy to take care of. When they’re in numbers it’s a different kettle of fish altogether.”

  “I hear what you’re saying.” Yoler nodded.

  “Anyway,” Gavin groaned. “We turned the car around and there was another horde, out of nowhere. They must have heard the engine of the car ... or something.” He didn’t seem sure.

  “What happened after that?”

  “There were fields to either side of us, and those Canavars, or whatever you call them, headed towards the car, quicker than we thought was possible.”

  “I think they call them Canavars because it was a term used when the media was still up and running. I think the phrase was coined by some Turkish scientist being interviewed by the BBC.”

  “I heard quite a few names, but Canavars seems to be the one that stuck the most.”

  “What other names do you remember?”

  Gavin rubbed his chin and smiled at the female. Already, he was wondering what it would be like to sleep with her. He loved her hair. It was like one of The Beatle haircuts from the Rubber Soul album, and despite the fact that she had no make up on and probably hadn’t showered in a while, he thought she was gorgeous.

  “Erm...” Gavin finally answered. “The ones I can remember off the top of my head were Biters, Shamblers, Rotters...”

  “My friend used to call them Shufflers, but with the amount of people I’ve come across I’ve heard other names like, Monsters, Lurkers, Crazies. Another friend of mine called them Snatchers.”

  A silence fell on the two of them and Gavin cleared his throat, looked down, and began to kick at the ground, desperate to think of something else to say. He didn’t want Yoler to excuse herself just yet. He was enjoying her company.

  “So...” It appeared that Yoler had decided to break the silence. “When are you going to take me out?”

  “What?” Gavin burst out laughing and placed his hand over his mouth, apologising to Yoler for his insulting reaction. Her question was ridiculous and had also taken him by surprise. Take her out? Where on earth could he take her out? In this area? In this situation they were all in?

  Gavin finally managed to compose himself and was thankful that Yoler was also laughing with him.

  “Take you out?” he continued to snicker. “And where do you suggest I take you out? To an Italian restaurant? Out for a coffee? To see the new Tom Hardy movie?”

  “Mmm, Tom Hardy.” Yoler began to lick her lips. “Now there’s a face I haven’t seen for a while. I hope he’s still alive.”

  “Probably not,” Gavin said with a cheeky smile. “Anyway, back to this so called date of ours...”


  “In a few days we can have a picnic by the pond,” said Yoler. “Maybe even get up to some naughty stuff.”

  “Jesus,” Gavin scoffed and his face flushed red. “You’re not shy, are you?”

  “Life’s too short to be shy these days.” Yoler leaned forward and rubbed Gavin’s arm. “After you’ve seen what I’ve seen ... well ... you just don’t know when your time is up.”

  “It’s not as bad as it used to be, don’t you think?”

  “The dead have certainly dwindled in numbers.” Yoler gently brushed her dark fringe from her eyes. “But a lot of survivors have become arseholes now.”

  “Arseholes?” Gavin questioned. “Or simply just desperate people wanting to survive?”

  “Trust me,” Yoler said. “Some of the stuff that I’ve seen has had nothing to do with survival. What has beating a man to death in front of his family have to do with survival? What has raping a fifteen-year-old girl got to do with survival? And what has killing a harmless family dog with a crowbar, even though the family allowed the men to go inside their house and take what they wanted, got to do with survival?”

  Gavin gulped, stood up straight and took a small step away from the tree he was leaning against. “And you’ve seen all these things?”

  Yoler nodded. “I have seen some human kindness as well. It’s not all doom and gloom, but you don’t know who to trust. Like Simon, I tried to avoid company, and now suddenly, for the last few days, I’m with a small group of people, good people, and loving it.”

  “Anyway,” Gavin smirked. “Let’s talk about this date of ours. You mentioned being ... naughty. How naughty?”

  Yoler giggled and said, “As naughty as you like.”

  “But...”

  “But?”

  “What about...?”

  “You need to start finishing your sentences, Gavin,” said Yoler with a smile, her tongue planted inside her cheek.

  “What about protection?”

  “There’re ways and means of doing things without me falling pregnant,” she said with a smirk. “Anyway, a friend of mine brought back some condoms from a recent supermarket trip.” She decided not to tell Gavin that this friend of hers, Dicko, was someone she had slept with and would probably continue to sleep with.

  Gavin began to shake with nerves. There were a number of reasons why this was the case. He wasn’t used to being around women so up front. Helen was all about the safety of her son and had never hinted or showed any signs of wanting any sexual activity. Neither did the other females in the camp. The other reason why he suddenly felt uncomfortable was because of guilt.

  Gavin had kept himself to himself and had told the people in the camp very little about his past life. He had told Helen that he used to live with his parents and had lost them in the first week, but he never told them much about his girlfriend.

  He kept in contact with his partner in the first week and both had agreed that they should stay where they were, despite only being half a mile from each other. After eight days of staying indoors, on June 17th, his parents’ house was attacked by a group of the dead. Gavin had no idea how this had happened. They had kept the curtains and blinds shut and made very little noise, but something had stirred the couple and had made their way to the front door. There were only two of them at first, and then a day later there were dozens of them.

  It took only hours for the ground floor windows to give way, and Gavin and his parents moved upstairs for good, but the danger hadn’t stopped there. The dead crawled their way up the stairs and Gavin and his dad spent many hours killing these things as they reached the top. Gavin used a pool cue, whereas his dad had taken a rolling pin from the kitchen when they first went upstairs.

  His dad was grabbed and pulled downstairs, where a sea of crawling dead devoured him in minutes. His screams were short. After this incident his mother just gave up and had taken an overdose whilst Gavin was at the top of the stairs, fighting some of them off.

  He returned to his parents’ room for a breather and found his mum on the bed, dead. She had written the word ‘sorry’ in lipstick, on her dressing table mirror. After a few minutes of crying, he texted his girlfriend to tell her what had happened and that he was coming over. She told him that she wanted to leave to go to a school where her friends were staying at, but her parents didn’t want to leave the house. He told her to pack a few things and that they’d be leaving in her car.

  Gavin went through his attic and climbed over his roof; he went down a drainpipe and reached the ground floor, then ran for his girlfriend’s house. She was still there, and when they left, with her parents’ blessing, they headed for the primary school where her friends were supposed to be staying. But they never made it.

  Two of the dead had shambled out from behind a bush; his girlfriend hit the pair of them and panicked, and then ended up crashing into somebody’s brick wall. The pair of them got out of the car, took the packed bag from the back passenger seat, and fled on foot. They stayed in an abandoned house for two nights, but his girlfriend was then killed when they both broke into a newsagents to grab some food, but one of the dead inside, presumably the owner, had grabbed her and took her down before Gavin could do anything about it.

  He then took the short drive to Hayley’s house and was relieved that she was still alive. The pair of them were on their own for many months, and agreed to journey north where they eventually met this group. Despite the quote that time was a healer, he was still hurting. There wasn’t a day that went by when he didn't think of his partner, or his parents.

  “Gavin?”

  He snapped out of his daydreaming and looked up to see Yoler calling his name and playfully snapping her fingers in front of his eyes.

  “Hello, Gavin.” She continued to snap her fingers and giggled, “Is there anybody in there?”

  “What?” Gavin yawned, widened his eyes and took a quick peep at Yoler. “What was that?”

  “You were miles away,” she snickered and slapped him on the shoulder. “What were you thinking about?”

  Gavin shook his head gently and smiled thinly at Yoler. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “An old flame?”

  Gavin became irritable with Yoler’s persistence. “I said ... it doesn’t matter.”

  Yoler gazed at Gavin and said, “I’m sorry. I know I’m a bit full on some of the time, but...”

  “You don’t have to explain.”

  “I never used to be like this ... in the old world.”

  “You don’t have to explain, I said.”

  “Okay.”

  Gavin excused himself from a confused Yoler and turned on his heels, ready to move away from the female.

  “Is that our date out of the window then?”

  Her question made Gavin pause and stopped him from making his first step. “Probably not a good idea,” he said.

  Gavin walked away and went over to the large cabin that had been there before they arrived. He placed his hand on the door handle of the place and Yoler spoke once more before he had a chance to go in.

  “I had a partner once, when it all kicked off,” she said. “If this situation has taught me anything—”

  “I know, I know,” Gavin snapped. “Life’s short.”

  “It is.”

  Gavin lowered his head and looked to the side, over to Yoler. “I suppose I’ll see you around, Yoler. Good to meet you. You’re not exactly … normal, are you?”

  She shook her head and smiled. “I sometimes pretend to be normal, but it gets boring so I go back to being me.”

  She gave Gavin a wink and walked away, back over to Simon and the rest.

  Gavin shut the door behind him and looked around inside the cabin. Supplies were getting low. They were always low, but they always somehow managed.

  Gavin sat on one of the chairs, in the corner of the cabin, and looked up to the ceiling.

  His thoughts went to Carla, his girlfriend of almost two years, and his mind went back to her demise. It scared the
life out of him. He knew that hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, had gone this way, but it wasn’t the way he wanted to go.

  The Canavars had depleted in numbers as time passed on, but they were still around. For reasons he couldn’t understand, he thought about their weekend trip to Rhyl. It was their last break before the apocalypse began. He remembered driving most of the way there whilst Carla slept.

  He smiled as he remembered passing places like Prestatyn, Flint, Queensferry, Mostyn and Mold ye Wyddgrugg.

  He wondered what condition they were in now. Were there any survivors?

  He could feel his eyes filling, and allowed the tears to fall now that he was alone in the dusky place. He sobbed gently, and even began to think about his friends from the past, his work colleagues and even his ex-girlfriend, Jade.

  He was too young when he went out with Jade Greatrix, and he treated the poor girl like dirt. Sometimes they would arrange to go out, only for Gavin to cancel at the last minute and go out with his pals instead. She dumped him after four months, and accused him of only using her for sex. She wasn’t wrong.

  He smiled and apologised to Jade under his breath. He hoped she had made it, but doubted it. The last thing he heard, she had moved to the West Midlands and got herself a job at a sports centre as a fitness instructor. But that was around a year ago.

  He wiped his eyes and could hear voices being raised. He looked out of the cabin window and could see that the new people were getting ready to leave. He smiled, hoped he would see them again, and sat back down in the murky cabin.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The feet of Yoler Sanders and Simon and Imelda Washington trudged through the bracken. They exited the wooded area and were now at the pond, on their way back to the farmhouse. Simon looked up to the murky sky and was feeling tired. Another few hours and he and Imelda were going to retire to their bedroom for the night.