‘Reggie…get out here,’ Howie shouts.
‘Reggie,’ Paula relays the call as Danny turns to see a small man in the front of the vehicle twisting round. His face as battered and bruised as everyone else. He clambers down stiffly, limping from the front past Danny, his eyes fixed only on the horde.
‘Oh my,’ Reginald whispers. ‘Indeed…’
Howie stands in the middle of the group, his rifle lowered, his dark eyes staring from the woman with the red hair to the others behind her walking slowly up the street. She stops to stand still, seemingly watching Howie while her horde come to a slow stop behind her. All of them with heads up. All of them so human. Even the ones with awful injuries stand normally. A man with one arm gone from the shoulder. The gristle, meat and bone showing visible. Faces bitten. Necks bitten. Bite marks everywhere. Blood on their clothes. Some naked and unashamed.
Howie blinks, glancing left to Reggie now at his side then faces forward again and as the horde all come to a stop so the street falls into a silence broken only by the sounds of them breathing from running and the low, constant, deep throaty growl coming from Meredith who walks low and poised to stand in front of the pack leader. Showing the enemy her teeth. Her head lowered. Her eyes fixed. Hackles up.
Jess snorts, slamming a front hoof into the road surface. The jostle of reins and buckles. Charlie holding her steady.
That silence stretches on with two sides staring at each other. Reginald swallows, his broken hand now forgotten on seeing the change in the other side. The other player is making a move, but he doesn’t know what it is. His own senses dulled from the beating he took. His own mind taken out of the game and a feeling inside that the other player kept going without them.
‘Your kind are cruel…’
‘Holy shit it spoke,’ Cookey mutters in shock at the infected woman with the long red hair calling out in a clear voice.
‘We’re infected, and we can speak bellend,’ Blowers whispers.
‘Cruel,’ she says again, lifting her chin as she speaks with a gesture so human it renders them all silent. ‘We are not,’ she adds. ‘We are not cruel…’ her voice drops in tone as she finishes, almost as though she is expressing shame at the people in front of her.
Silence again. Heavy and charged. Fingers on triggers.
‘We,’ the woman calls out. ‘Did not kill Blinky…’
A shot fired from an SA80 assault rifle that spins through the air at nine hundred and forty metres a second and the woman flies back off her feet with the back of her head exploding in a cloud of pink mist.
‘You don’t say her name,’ Howie whispers, looking down the sights.
A pulse. A thing inside. Danny stiffens, his lips curling back at the feeling he had before. The same rage but so much stronger now. Focussed and concentrated.
‘Your kind killed Blinky…’ Another shot fired and the male infected speaking out flies back.
‘We didn’t kill her…’
Another shot.
‘Your kind killed her…’
Another shot.
‘Your kind are cruel…’
Two shots taken together. Howie and Clarence firing at the same time.
‘We are not cruel…’
More shots taken. Blowers and Cookey lifting rifles to join in.
‘You will kill them all, Howie…’
Everyone shoots. Everyone fires and the street fills with gunfire as scores of infected standing passive and inert fly back from the rounds slamming through them.
Howie lifts a hand. The guns fall silent. Chests heaving. Ears ringing. The rage right there and if he had an axe Howie would charge. He barely holds himself back now from rushing in to kill with his hands, but his team are sore and broken from the beating they took, the beating that came from their own side and the words sink in. The truth of them stinging harsh and bitter.
‘Your soldiers are cruel…’ another voice calls out and the shot comes from behind that makes Dave spin with his own weapon aimed at Danny holding Roy’s rifle left propped against the Saxon braced in his shoulder.
‘My father was a soldier,’ Danny shouts. His voice so deep yet so young and cracking with emotion. ‘My father saved his unit…’
‘PUT THAT RIFLE DOWN,’ Dave roars.
‘Jesus,’ Paula says, moving fast. ‘Danny, give me that…’
‘MY FATHER WAS A SOLDIER,’ Danny shouts.
‘Give me the bloody gun, Danny…now!’
He complies at her tone, lowering the weapon to make safe before handing it over, his eyes hard.
‘Your kind are…’
‘Oh fuck off,’ Howie shouts, opening fire as the street once again fills with the roar of gunfire and it takes mere seconds for the slaughter to be over. The ease of pulling a trigger to end scores of lives with bullets going through hearts, lungs and into brains. Bones shattering. Blood spraying and just another pile of what was once human form now dead and broken on the ground.
There is no order given to ceasefire. None is needed and as the last one falls so the rifles and the heavier thud of the GPMG fall silent and that mood they had before, the awful, crushing, soul-destroying emotional state grows only worse for the words said.
‘My fault,’ Roy says into the charged quiet.
‘Fucking prick,’ Blowers snaps. ‘Do not leave a loaded rifle in…’
‘Do not call me a fucking prick,’ Roy says back.
‘We could have been shot from the rear…’ Blowers shouts. ‘KEEP HOLD OF YOUR WEAPON.’
‘I wouldn’t shoot you,’ Danny says. ‘I’m a cadet…I was joining the…’
‘You ever touch a weapon without my permission again and I will fucking hurt you,’ Blowers snaps, striding at Danny. ‘DO YOU UNDERSTAND? Soldiers have discipline. They follow orders. They don’t grab guns and fire without being told…’
‘I’m sorry…’
‘SHUT UP,’ Blowers roars from a foot away, his haggard beaten face twisted with anger.
Danny nods once, lowering his head as they all reel from the rage inside. The rage that isn’t vented for the lack of a fight given. A simmering thing that makes lips pursed and brows drop.
‘We’ll give you directions to the fort,’ Blowers says. ‘Then you can fuck off…’
‘Whoa hang on,’ Paula says.
‘What fort?’ Danny asks, looking from Paula to Blowers then beyond to Howie. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It means you’re going,’ Blowers says.
‘Going? I’m not going…I want to fight…I’m a cadet and…I was joining the army…’
‘We’re not recruiting,’ Blowers snaps, cutting him off.
‘Okay, Simon. Take a minute please,’ Paula says.
‘I said we’re not recruiting…’
‘Stand down, Blowers,’ Paula says.
‘We’ll get you transport then you can go,’ Blowers tells Danny.
‘MISS PAULA GAVE AN ORDER, CORPORAL.’
Blowers stiffens to attention, standing upright. ‘Yes, Dave.’
‘Stand down. Check weapons. Ensure your team is hydrated.’
‘Yes, Dave…my team with me…’ he moves off towards the Saxon, not looking at Danny.
‘We can’t take someone else into this shit,’ Nick says to Paula, walking behind Blowers with Cookey. ‘Ain’t fair…’
‘Mr Hewitt, do we have an issue?’
‘No, Dave. Sorry, Dave.’
Howie glances over, watching Blowers lead his group away while Danny stands with his head down next to Paula. He could interrupt and say something, but those issues are best dealt with by Paula, and besides, Dave has got it under control. Instead, he looks over the slaughtered infected. ‘Well that was fun,’ he says darkly.
‘Indeed,’ Reginald says.
‘They didn’t attack,’ Clarence says.
‘Oh, but they did,’ Reginald replies. ‘They most certainly did, and I rather fear that form of attack will have a far greater effect than a mere sordid scrap.’<
br />
‘New tactic,’ Clarence asks. ‘Like psychological warfare.’
‘Unfortunately, that is exactly what it is, and I should imagine now they have started they will only do it more.’
‘We’re already fractured,’ Clarence says, looking at Howie. ‘Few more comments like that and we’ll be suicidal…’ he trails off to look round, finally resting his eyes on Danny. ‘What about him?’
‘Maybe Blowers is right,’ Howie says. ‘Can’t take another kid into this shit.’
‘Alas but this is a war,’ Reginald says thoughtfully, looking at Marcy for a long second. ‘And right now I think we need all the help we can get.’
Four
Day Twelve.
They hunker down in the aisle of the supermarket as she presses her finger to her lips, urging the child to be quiet as the footsteps come closer. They can’t make a sound. The consequences will be dire, catastrophic even, but now they are trapped and cannot move for fear of giving away their position.
The woman bites her lip, her eyes wide. She can hear her own heart beating and still those footsteps come closer. The heavy tread of a man hunting them. A bad man. An awful man. A most terrible killer with bulging eyes and pock-marked skin. A serial killer that stops at the end of the aisle to stare down at them crouched at the base of the shelf with an open bag of marshmallows held between them.
‘Bugger,’ she says as the boy giggles and carries on eating. ‘Haff a smarshmallow,’ she says, throwing a pink blob at Gregori who catches it deftly. ‘Shreely nice,’ she nods as Gregori sniffs the squidgy thing.
‘Is sugar,’ he says.
‘Shnice shugar,’ she says, chewing with a look of heavenly delight. ‘Just try it,’ she urges after swallowing. He flicks the thing away, disdainful and almost pompous in his manner. ‘More for us,’ she grabs another packet from the shelf, locking eyes on Gregori as she pinches the top to pull the seam apart as though daring him to stop her.
He shrugs, ‘get fat,’ he walks on pushing his trolley across the dusty ground. ‘Fatter,’ he mutters, going out of sight.
‘Oi! I’m not fat,’ she yells with a mouthful of marshmallow, leading the boy out of the aisle to follow Gregori. ‘My god what an awful dreary place,’ she stops to frown, looking down at the boy. ‘I sounded just like my mother then,’ she points at him, her eyes twinkling when he grins and laughs. ‘Which is never a good thing as my mother was a hag...’
‘What’s a hag, Casseeee?’
‘Hmmm, like a witch. But not a good witch, like an old woman that only ever moans about everything…’
Gregori falters mid-step, turning to look back before walking on.
‘I am not a hag, Gregori.’
‘I no say this.’
‘I don’t moan about everything,’ she affects a reaction of deep insult and walks on while casting overly dramatic mean looks to Gregori that just makes the boy laugh again. ‘Cheek of it,’ she mumbles.
‘Cheek of it,’ the boy parrots.
‘Well said. The cheek of it,’ she says again.
‘Dumbass motherfuckers,’ the boy says, making Cassie and Gregori both stop.
‘What did you just say?’ she asks.
‘Dumbass motherfuckers.’
‘Okay, that’s a bad word,’ Cassie says, wondering what awful life he had before this that led him to know such terrible things. His mother was clearly a cunt. Not that Cassie would say that. She plucks the bag of marshmallows from his hands with a stern expression. ‘Good boys who don’t say bad things eat marshmallows.’
‘Aw but…’
‘No. You can’t say rude things. Where did he learn those words?’ she asks Gregori.
‘I not know this.’
‘Shocking really,’ she says.
‘Marcy’s going to the fort.’
‘Okay stop. Who is Marcy? Did she tell you the bad words?’
‘He say this name before,’ Gregori says.
‘Bitten on the bum,’ Cassie says, clicking her fingers at Gregori as she remembers. ‘Marcy was bitten on the bum.’
‘Bitten on the bum,’ the boy says, staring at his bag of marshmallows in Cassie’s hands.
‘You,’ she says. ‘Are a very strange little boy. What are you?’
‘Dumbass motherfucker.’
‘Right. Stop saying those that.’
‘Randall said it,’ the boy blurts.
‘No. Listen to me...’
‘But, Casseee, Randall in the prison with…’ innocence and honesty pour from his expression. His blue eyes so wide and open. She scowls, thinking to be cross, thinking to chastise but it’s so hard to be angry at him for longer than a few seconds.
She holds a finger up to keep his attention, signalling this is not the time for him to speak. He casts a look at Gregori who stares on as impassive as ever, his senses tuned to the world around them while he waits.
‘Who is Randall?’ she asks. ‘And who is Marcy?’
‘Marcy’s going to the fort.’
‘Marcy was the one bitten on the bum, is that right? Who bit Marcy on the bum? Was it Randall?’
‘Darren.’
‘Darren bit Marcy.’
The boy nods.
‘Who bit Darren? Was that Randall?’
The boy shakes his head. ‘Darren wasn’t bited.’
‘Bitten. Darren wasn’t bitten.’
‘Bitten.’
‘Good boy. How did Darren get…it,’ she flaps her hands, unsure of what to say.
The boy points to his mouth, holding his finger on his bottom lip.
‘In his mouth? Okay, so Darren got something in his mouth then Darren bit Marcy on the bum? Yes? And now Randall is in prison. No?’
‘He got out.’
‘Oh he got out,’ she says. ‘With Marcy? No? Great. This is all very clear. Is this clear?’ she asks Gregori.
‘Is not clear.’
It’s not clear,’ she tells the boy then kisses his forehead simply because he’s so scrummy. ‘You’re scrummy, you know that,’ she says. ‘Even if you are nuts.’
‘Nuts,’ he says, giggling.
‘Is the fort near here?’
The boy doesn’t answer and his expression suggests the question is beyond him and the things he knows are not his but belonging to something else, the thing inside him, the aged thing that she keeps seeing but that isn’t there right now. ‘It’s fine,’ she says warmly, smiling at him. ‘It’s all fine. Go and run about.’
She stands slowly, watching as the boy runs off down an aisle. ‘Was he bitten?’ she asks Gregori. ‘Did blood go in his mouth? In his eyes?’
Gregori thinks back to the boy stabbing the things attacking his mother, the close proximity and the microscopic fluids no doubt flying about in the air. Sweat, saliva, blood, even tears. ‘I not see but…he use knife when his mother she bit.’
‘He stabbed his mum?’
‘Thing bite mother. Boy stab thing.’
‘Oh, I see. Bloody hell, where did he get the knife from?’
He shrugs, ‘I take him then. His eyes, they not the red.’
She goes to speak then spots the scratches on her arms made by the boy when she restrained him in the room as Gregori slaughtered the infected in the garden below. A feeling inside at the thought of it. An anger at Gregori that flashes up. ‘Shouldn’t have done that.’
‘What?’
‘Killed them,’ she snaps. ‘They weren’t hurting you.’
‘Who? Who I kill?’
‘At that house. Why did you kill them?’
‘What house? The men? They hurt you yes?’
‘What? No! Not those…’ another rush inside at the memory of Gregori killing the men she pulled to the floor while her breasts were exposed, at the heat of it, the frenzy of it and she smiles warmly, flitting from one mood to the other, ‘it’s cool.’
‘You crazy woman,’ Gregori tells her.
‘All women are crazy my darling.’
‘No. You have the problem.
In here,’ he taps the side of his head, walking after her while she turns to walk backwards, still smiling.
‘Are you calling me mental?’
‘Have problem. Need doctor, head doctor.’
‘Says the serial killer…where’s he gone? BOY? WHERE ARE YOU?’ she listens for a second then tuts with a roll of her eyes. ‘I’ll find him.’
She sets off down the aisle he ran through, following the footprints made in the dust on the floor. To the end and left then on past the ends of the aisles. ‘Where are you, you little monkey,’ she calls out, hearing a giggle and the sound of running feet. She spots the tracks disappearing through a set of double doors that obviously lead into the rear storage area and runs fast with sudden fright at the thought of the boy going somewhere unsafe. ‘Boy! Come back…’
She pushes through into an instant change of environment. Dark and gloomy. Shadows everywhere. Shapes of large wheeled cages filled with boxes of goods made ready to go out onto the shop floor when the end of days came. Smells hit her nose. The stench of unwashed bodies. Of decaying matter but those scents were prevalent in the supermarket too from the meat left to rot in the freezers and chiller cabinets. She goes to turn, to push the door open to call Gregori in fear of going further when she hears the giggle coming from nearby.
‘Where are you?’ she snaps, taking another step into the storage room. ‘Boy! Where are you?’ she wishes he had a name to call, a proper name and in that surreal moment she starts thinking of names when she hears him giggle again and spins this way and that, trying to see him. ‘This is just creepy now…’
‘Up here, Casseeeee.’
She snaps her head up to a wide shelf seven feet off the ground and the boy perched on the edge with his legs dangling down, laughing at her.
‘How the…’ she goes closer, following the line of the shelf to see it running the length of the room with no ladders or steps going up to it. Nothing to climb on either. ‘How did you get up there?’
The boy smiles with his face half hidden in the shadows and lifts a hand to point. Cassie turns, frowning in confusion then stepping back into a box on sight of the tall man standing silently between two of the large wheeled cages. ‘Jesus…who are you?’
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