by Remy Porter
‘You know what you’ve got to do,’ Mark said to his brother.
‘I don’t want to do it now.’
‘But you’ve got to.’
Phillip brought the bat down on the man’s head and burst it open. His fat head exploded like a smashed watermelon. Bits of his mushy brain fell onto the frosty ground and pooled at their feet.
They’d found him wandering a few days earlier when they’d first sneaked away from the farm when nobody was looking. At first they had run away, scared from the man in the woods, but he had been so slow. They had run circles around him and made a game of it. In the end, it had actually been Phillip who said they wanted to tie it and hurt it, for all the bad things that had happened. Now they had done it, Mark thought.
‘Let’s get another one soon,’ Phillip said.
‘Okay.’
CHAPTER 20
Bill steered a police panda car down the rutted track that followed the beach. Arthur sat in the passenger seat studying a torn piece of paper on which Johnny had scrawled a rudimentary map. ‘Serious Killing of Undead Life,’ had been Arthur’s idea. S.K.U.L. was born out of his love of making up sayings to help him remember things. Arthur chuckled at the thought that he and Bill had come a long way from playing Sudoku in bed on rainy Sunday mornings in their basement flat. He’d lost count now of how many houses they’d cleared, and how many of those rotting things they’d put down.
Arthur glanced onto a back seat dirty with mud and the iron red staining of old blood. On the seat was their arsenal of weapons, which now ranged from machetes to crowbars and sawn-off shotguns. Their favourites were still intact, two thick bladed daggers with white ivory handles. Between them they’d perfected a counter attacking move where a zombie comes forward to be parried and spun just enough for the blade to come crashing through the back of its head. Arthur felt, when he stood side by side with Bill, they were invincible.
The rutted track moved onto two undulating strips of concrete that took them to where the caravans started. Just as Johnny had described, they were crusted with mosses and lichens. Some of them looked like they had been abandoned for years. Arthur started to count the caravans on the left side. This was going to be one of the last SKUL jobs for a long time, retirement beckoned. The houses in the village were all clear, and nobody had reported a zombie loose inside the fence line for weeks. Their work was done, or it had been until Johnny remembered this little caravan park. He had told them, ‘why don’t you guys go down there and do a little recce and then we’ll all go down tomorrow.’ But recces weren’t really their style, Arthur knew they were here to do some old fashioned zombie bashing.
‘Do you think that’s the one?’ Bill said.
‘That’s the one,’ Arthur replied. He could see the grand lace curtains. It had to be.
They flung the grubby florescent police stab-proof vests over their heads and pulled the heavy leather gloves on. Bill and Arthur went instinctively for the daggers, and then smiled and swapped when they realised they’d picked each others up. Taking some deep breaths Arthur went up to the side window with a torch. The static caravan was on blocks too high to look in directly, so he stood on a large plant pot and wobbled.
Arthur shone the torch into the murk and started to make out various objects inside. The window looked into the lounge area with a pull-out table, the cushions on the semi-circle of seating were dislodged and on the floor. Some food was on the table, and the floor had all the tell tale signs of a massive disturbance, with cutlery and glass smashed all over the brown carpet. Arthur moved the torch beam further into the caravan, and could see the pine doors on the wall cupboards broken and crushed. From his experience, he knew there must be something inside, another body that needed its end.
Arthur pushed the torch beam a little further and started to see into the kitchen area. He found it difficult to see any further, and pushed his face against the clear plastic window. Arthur could just make out some open drawers and a mess of utensils on the nearest side board. There was something else as Arthur squinted into the gloom. There was a brown shiny shoe behind an open cupboard. It was right at the back of the caravan. He couldn’t make it out very clearly. Then the shoe moved.
‘SHIT!’ he shouted, as the plant pot collapsed and he fell onto his back. Arthur was winded, trying to gasp for breath that wouldn’t come.
‘Are you okay down there, mate?’ Bill said smiling.
‘Can’t bree ...’ came out as a faint whisper. Then all at once, he saw it. There was a woman crawling out from underneath the caravan. Bill had his back to her, and was bending down to help him. Slow motion almost, she was tearing into Bill’s exposed calf muscle with a dirty, soil-filled mouth. Bill screamed and the sound broke Arthur’s heart.
Arthur felt his vision begin to fray around the edges, starved of oxygen. The pressure built up in his diaphragm and finally his lungs sprang back to life again. Deep breaths at last, when the caravan door burst open and the thing with the shoes was coming at him. Arthur scratched blindly in the dirt for his dagger, but the ruin of a man crushed him under his weight. The precious air was forced out again, and bile rose up in his mouth.
Above him were pitiless rotting eyes and a skull-face dry and mummified. The world was fading again, and Arthur felt the thing tear away his ear, making his head ring. He looked over towards where Bill lay. The brown soil was swimming red in his blood. The woman was eating greedily around the useless stab vest. Already he could see he was twitching and convulsing, the change was happening fast.
Arthur went to push the man away from his neck, but then stopped himself. He just wanted to be with Bill. They would dead walk together in this next life.
Soulmates forever.
CHAPTER 21
Jean Hanson let out another awful cry, ‘OOOWWWW!’ The faces around her in the bedroom looked blank, fearful.
‘How long is it since the last contraction?’ shouted Toby Hanson, barrelling his way back into the room, hands full of towels and a kettle of boiled water. ‘Does any one know where the painkillers are? I’ve checked the kitchen and they’re gone.’
‘You’ll be okay, won’t you Mum,’ said Mark. His younger brother Phillip was silent, cheeks burnt red by the tears. Their Mum looked so sick and weak propped up on the double bed. Her face was beetroot red and the bulge of her stomach looked impossibly big.
‘OOOWWWW!’
Toby looked out of the farmhouse window for some inspiration. The situation had caught them by surprise. They had counted and were sure the baby wasn’t due for weeks. One minute they had been making a bath up and the next this. That bastard Jack had done nothing to help, the man had disappeared out into the fields with his degenerate son for the day and taken most of the villagers with them. Alison tore into the room.
‘Thank God,’ Toby gushed.
‘Listen boys, your Mum needs some time and space to have this baby. I bet you can’t wait to see if it’s a little brother or sister,’ she said, hustling them out. ‘I’ll be back in a tick.’
Toby squeezed his wife’s hand. “We’ll get through this, just you watch.’
‘OOOWWWW!’
He grabbed one of the white towels and started to dab off the perspiration from Jean’s forehead. Toby kept looking down the bed at her bare legs and the stain on the linen her waters had made. How long had they until the baby came? He picked up the tattered library book he’d found in the village, How to Give Birth by Karen Waldron. Over twenty five years old, he flicked it open and ten pages detached from the spine and fell onto the floor.
‘Fuck it,’ he hissed, and scooped them up. He felt like he was starting to lose it.
‘The boys are fine, sorted them out with a nice big jigsaw. Now where are we?’ Alison said from the door.
‘It. Hurts. Too. Much.’
‘Look we’ll get through this. We’ve just got to stay calm. Childbirth is the naturalest thing in the world. You’ll see,’ Alison said. ‘Right, let’s take a look.’
; Alison went down and parted Jean’s legs. ‘Look this may smart a bit, but I need to reach in there and see how far off you are.’
‘So you were a nurse right, back before all this happened,’ Toby whispered to Alison.
‘Not exactly, but my sister was a community midwife. She used to tell me all the old war stories and gory details. I’ve got a fair mind what to do down there. Piece of cake, trust me,’ she said raising her voice. ‘Now you stay calm and still, okay Jean? This won’t take a second.’
‘OOOWWWW!’
‘Okay, I’m estimating her cervix is nearly fully dilated. That’s pretty damn far gone missy. It’s just a matter of time now. Toby, go to my dresser will you? First drawer down on the right and you’ll find a small tub of aspirin. Not great, but better than nothing for your pain.’
An hour later and Jean was screaming and crying. Her hands had torn shreds out of the sheets on both sides of the bed. The linen was running freely with her blood.
‘You gotta push like hell, honey. I can see its head now,’ Toby shouted.
‘Come on, it’s crowning. We’re nearly there, just a few more minutes. Let me just get these gloves on to catch the baby,’ Alison added.
There was a rush of movement and in a blur, there was a new born baby on the dirty linen sheets. Wet crimson viscera splattered off the bed and onto the polished floor. The baby lay prone. Silence edged round the room. Alison lifted it up and wrapped it in a towel. The cord arced down, still bonding mother to child.
‘She’s beautiful,’ Alison said, shakily.
Jean looked over with her tired eyes and tried to focus. Something wasn’t right. The room started to spin a little and she concentrated hard to make it stop. ‘What’s happening? Make her cry. Why’s she not crying?’
‘Jesus, she is turning blue. Do something, Alison. Come on, hurry up,’ Toby said, snatching up the baby.
‘I think it’s the cord, we need to cut the cord,’ Alison said, reaching for the scissors.
‘Jesus, how can it be the cord? She’s not breathing. Can you do mouth to mouth?’ Toby shouted.
‘Just let me do this, alright,’ Alison said and made the snip. ‘Hold this end.’
Toby looked horrified as dark liquid started flowing through both the baby’s cut cord and Jean’s. He pinched his fingers over the baby’s cord and shouted, ‘Get some fucking string.’
The baby’s face was not just blue, but bright blue as if she had blue blood flowing in those tiny veins. Toby started blowing tiny puffs of air into her mouth, and watched her little rib cage rise and fall. The baby’s arms and legs were limp, her head lolling lazily back against his arm.
‘My baby ...’ Jean cried from the bed. There was no response. She wanted to sleep now. She wanted this all to be a dream that would go away. The room was silent again, then filled by Jean’s piercing howl, ‘MY BABY GIRL!’
‘Let me try,’ said Alison.
The poor nameless baby girl was passed back and forth, never moving. Finally, Toby laid her down in the cot he had built in the corner of the room; his eyes welling up when he saw his wife holding the child to her breast, trying to feed it better. Detached and floating, he felt his mind clamping down on his emotions. He hated this world.
Soon, the fatigue overtook Jean and she slept, the baby limp in her arms still. The bottom of the bed was awash with blood and afterbirth, but he didn’t suppose it really mattered.
‘Listen, Jack and the others will be back soon. I should go and make a start with dinner. I’ll come and help with whatever you need later. Perhaps we could have a proper burial or a funeral ... I could talk to Jack,’ Alison said. ‘I’m just so sorry.’
‘You did everything you could. You’ve nothing to be sorry about,’ Toby said flatly, pushing past her onto the landing. He heard someone creaking their way up the steep staircase and walked over to see who it was.
Griffin.
‘So have you finished making fucking babies,’ he sneered.
Toby punched him on the side of the head. He didn’t even realise he was doing it until it was done. It was as if his subconscious had taken over and sent his hand out to do some business. And Business was good! Griffin tumbled back down the staircase, like an old black and white Laurel and Hardy sketch. The shocked impression on Griffin’s face was priceless.
‘You broke my fucking arm,’ Griffin shouted back, his left arm grotesquely bent back at the elbow. Snapped like a twig.
‘Daddy,’ Phillip said from behind him. ‘What did you do?’
And then, like the onset of a hurricane, reality came flooding back.
What did I do? he thought.
CHAPTER 22
‘Where are they?’ I said for at least the fifth time since Summer, Lester and I had left the station.
‘They said they were going check out the caravans, I told you that was all Arthur and Bill told me.’ Summer’s nose wrinkled when she was mad, and her cheeks blushed a fierce red.
Lester sat in the back of the 4x4, a heavy crow bar on his lap. He was clearly under no illusion that Bill and Arthur’s failure to return for twelve hours could only be likely to be bad.
Very bad.
I stopped the Freelander a short distance from the caravan. The PVC door was flapping open in the breeze, and the ground was littered with rubbish. When we stepped out and looked more closely, there was no doubt that there had been a life and death struggle. Fresh blood stained the earth; lashings of it.
‘What happened?’ Summer said, as much to herself as us. She knew.
‘Look, we make a quick search and we head back. It’s getting dark and it’s clearly not safe around here,’ I said.
‘Johnny, look out!’ Lester shouted.
I turned around to see a grey hand reaching out and grabbing for my ankle. From the shadow of the crawl space beneath the static caravan, I could make out the outline of a withered face, all cheekbone and teeth. Pulling my leg away, I felt the thing’s dirty nails scrape my skin with preternatural strength. Summer was at my side, and with one slashing movement had her hatchet in its wrist. The blade went in deep, if not all the way through. Underneath the bone looked yellow and fetid.
Lester didn’t waste time. The pointed end of his crowbar went in through the eye socket of the under-dweller with a dry pop. ‘You were right Johnny,’ he said with a smile. ‘It clearly isn’t safe.’
‘Are you okay?’ Summer asked, her hands on my trouser leg.
‘No harm done,’ I said. The nails hadn’t gone through the canvas material, but the skin above my ankle had angry red rake marks. The truth was I pretty shaken. I just wanted to get back to the safety of the station. ‘Come on, a quick search and let’s get the fuck out of here.’
My head poked through the doorway of the caravan. There was a stench of decay in there, and everything that wasn’t broken was over-turned. I guessed the partner of the thing under caravan had been trapped here since the outbreak, getting very hungry. Then one fine day Bill and Arthur had come along and let it out. Shuddering, I kicked myself for even thinking that there were any safe places in this world now. The fence had made us all soft. I felt like I was losing my nerve.
‘I shouldn’t have let them go anywhere alone.’
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Summer said. Her hand squeezed mine.
‘Come on,’ Lester said. ‘We need to get a move on. The light’s fading and there could be three bodies out here somewhere. We’ll warn the farm and come back tomorrow in force. Nothing we can do now, Johnny.’
‘Looks that way,’ I said walking back to our vehicle.
We drove out of the caravan park, and didn’t plan to come back in a hurry. I didn’t want to think how many more hungry mouths might be dormant in the endless rows of mouldering caravans. As the dusk came, and the yellow ball of light slipped deep into the tree line, I wondered if a person’s courage could suddenly run out. As a group we had felt strong for a time. Clearing houses full of the dead, perhaps all we’d ever had was luck. The w
orld was an unfathomable and dangerous place all over again. I just wanted to hole up in the station and never come out.
Summer must have read it on my face, because she said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s just the shock. Look, I’ll drive us.’
When we broke out onto the beach road again, I looked out at the pebble beach and the quicksands beyond and wanted to see them. I don’t mean the romantic notion of seeing Bill and Arthur in one piece after what we’d seen at the caravan, clearly that was never going to happen. Part of me wanted to see those bodies out there on the sands and exposed. I wanted to walk right up and look into the dead faces of my former friends. I wanted to put them down, and kill the nightmares that I knew were coming. But the sands were empty apart from the fat seagulls, and there was no quick fix for me. They were inside the fence line someplace, and they meant to haunt all my days and nights to come.
‘Look,’ said Summer. ‘I know that kid, he’s from one of the families at the farm.’ I looked up from my stupor just as we turned into the police station car park. I sped up and parked the Freelander in front of him. What the hell? He looked completely terrified.
Mark was shouting through my door window before I’d even turned the engine off.
‘They won’t stop hurting him. They won’t stop hurting my dad.’
CHAPTER 23
‘You’re crazy,’ Summer told me again. ‘This plan, if you could even call it that, is going to get you killed.’
‘No, it’s not,’ I said. We’d brought Mark into our refreshment room at the station and he was greedily wolfing down some of Lester’s fabled chilli. The lad looked tired and cold. He’d told us how scared everyone was of Jack and Griffin at the farm, and how his Dad had lashed out at Griffin. Things had gotten a whole lot worse, off the scale worse. I kicked myself for not realising earlier.
‘Just stay here, okay? And look after the boy. I’ll handle this,’ I said to Summer, buttoning up my work shirt and fixing on a black clip on tie.