Dead Bones - Six Pack. The Ultimate Zombie Collection

by Ian Woodhead

  “Kevin here is Adrian’s younger brother.”

  Ernest immediately dropped his eyes to the floor, “Oh Christ, lad. I’m really sorry.”

  Kevin sighed, “It’s okay, I accepted that he was gone a bit back. I’m just glad that he took a few of those filthy bastards with him.”

  Well, he sounded tougher than he looked. He gazed back to where Doctor Death had fallen, suddenly remembering that he’d intended to smash his skull in. “Thanks for saving our lives, both of you. I reckon that if you hadn’t turned up, we’d have both ended up like those poor bastards in the van.”

  The boy shrugged. “Yeah, well, we were seconds away from shouting out to the old man until …” he paused and took a deep breath, “… until he opened the van doors and those things spilled out.”

  Kevin turned and padded around to the front of the van. Mavis hurried after him.

  “That young girl there is Kevin’s sister,” said Stephanie.

  Oh Jesus, talk about a double whammy; that kid would be in therapy for the rest of his life, if they lived through tonight that is. He quickly searched around to find something to cover her body. He had to make do with half a bed sheet he found in the back of the van; it was covered in bits of God knows what but it was better than nothing.

  “Mavis says that you may be able to get us out.”

  Ernest nodded at the girl, glad that she had changed the subject. Mavis returned with the boy; he waited for them both to draw near before he answered. He reckoned that the lad ought to hear this too; he looked like he needed cheering up.

  “Yeah, I can get us out. There’s a tunnel that leads all the way from …” he trailed off when he saw the color drain from both of their faces.

  “It’s under the old graveyard, isn’t it,” muttered Kevin.

  Ernest nodded. “Yeah, how did you know?”

  The hardened fighter disguise fell away to reveal a very frightened-looking boy. Mavis hurried over and put her arm around him.

  “We’ve just escaped from the cemetery,” said the girl.

  “What do you mean by escaped?”

  “There were thousands of them coming out from every house and shuffling through the streets.”

  “We saw that happen as well.” He decided not to mention that Adrian didn’t live through that. The lad looked traumatized enough.

  “Yeah well, we were with this other lad who led us into the cemetery. See if you can guess where that vast swarm of people was heading?”

  Ernest looked into the girl’s eyes; he couldn’t imagine what kind of terror she must have felt when she saw that swarm of ravenous things coming towards them.

  “How did you escape?”

  She picked at the decaying fabric covering her clothes, then looked at Kevin and smiled at him before walking over and grabbing his hand.

  “We wore a disguise. It was Kevin’s idea.”

  “There were a load of people hiding in the old church; those dead people just tore into them. I thought that we might be able to slip past them if we smelled as bad as they did.”

  The old woman had a very funny look on her face, as though she’d just found God.

  “We took these rags off a couple of dead people and hoped for the best. I mean, we had no other choice.”

  “Potentials and competitors,” murmured Mavis.

  Stephanie stared at her “What does that mean?”

  “It’s something that Doctor Death was going on about in the shop,” said Ernest. “He said that was how those things saw the human race. If you’re a potential then they’ll take a chunk out of you and you’ll end up turning into one of them, but if they see you as a competitor, then those bastards will rip you apart and eat the bits.”

  “A bit like a paper shredder,” whispered Mavis.

  “I think that’s why you were able to get past them; a competitor will take priority over a potential.”

  “This is bullshit,” said Kevin, “you’re not buying into this crap, are you, Steph? I mean, you’re repeating some twisted theory that a fucking homicidal maniac came out with.” He glared at Mavis.

  “Come on, Kevin. You’ve got to admit that it does sound plausible. They just pushed us out of the way to get to those other people.”

  Ernest gazed at the badly decomposed body next to Ethel, not believing what he was thinking. He swallowed down his fear and turned to the others. “We need to go into the cemetery. Personally, I think it’s the only chance we have.”

  Kevin staggered back, shaking his head. “I’m hearing things.”

  “You got out,” said Ernest, “we’ll be able to get in.”

  “Are you having a laugh?” cried Kevin. “We barely escaped with our lives. If those things hadn’t been distracted, we’d have had no bloody chance. Those poor souls will all be dead now.”

  Ernest shrugged. “Well in that case, that swarm will move on then, because you can guarantee that there’ll be more refuges scattered about the estate. They’ll be hunting them.”

  He held his breath and leaned over the corpse. He grabbed the shoulder, cringing when his forefinger pushed through into the soft flesh; it felt like he’d just stuck his finger into a rotten pear.

  “Ernest, you really do believe Dennis’s ideas, don’t you,” said Mavis.

  He looked at her and nodded, trying to ignore her troubled frown and those warning bells going off in his head.

  “I do know that Dennis was empathically dead and had no conscience, but he wasn’t insane.”

  “Well what about these dead things inheriting the planet? Will he be right about that bit too?”

  He shook his head, “Of course not. I don’t think that’s even possible. Come on, Mavis, do you honestly think I want to do this? What other choice do we have?”

  “There are always other choices. Say we do get out of here, Ernest. What will happen when we eventually die? Will we stay dead, or will we rise up from death and spread this plague? Have you considered that? Good Lord, we could be the ones responsible for killing our species!”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “And neither do you. I think we should …”

  “I can hear something coming,” hissed Stephanie.

  Ernest saw headlights reflecting in the windows of the dark houses, and raced over to hide behind the van, the other three right behind him. He peered through the side window; his heart sank when he saw a convoy of military vehicles rumbling past. They turned off and traveled down towards the old church.

  “We have to give ourselves up; it’s the only moral action we have left.”

  “Have you lost your mind, lass? How can you even suggest that after the way they treated you earlier?”

  “Those poor men were terrified, Ernest. The people they answer to will be professional specialists, and I’m sure that they’ll treat us with dignity and respect.”

  “Jesus lady, what planet did you come from?” muttered the girl.

  Mavis ignored her; she smiled and stood up. “Look, I’ll show you.”

  “For Christ’s sake woman, sit down!”

  She moved out of the way of Ernest’s arms and hurried around the van with her arms in the air.

  “Maybe she’s right, Ernest. Maybe we ought to give ourselves up.”

  He looked at Kevin and shook his head, “Believe me, son, she isn’t.”

  The boy tried to stand up but Stephanie reached out and pulled him back. “You ain’t going anywhere.”

  Three soldiers saw Mavis and immediately raised their rifles. The woman stopped. Ernest shut his eyes; he just knew what would happen next. He turned and slid down the van, flinching as three gunshots blasted through the air. He heard the girl start to sob and he felt like joining her.

  “Oh Jesus, that’s murder,” she cried. “Why the hell did they have to go do that?”

  “There are no vans out there; they have all the specimens they need. Those soldiers are a cleanup crew; they’ll have orders to shoot anything that moves.”

  “Ca
n’t we find somewhere to hole up and try again in the morning?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve already thought of that one, Stephanie, but it has to be tonight.”

  “A load more soldiers have just turned up. It looks like they are trying to repair the fence.”

  Ernest opened his eyes. He stood up and joined Kevin by the window; thankfully the van obscured his friend’s body.

  He slammed his hand against the side of the van, frustrated and angry. It wasn’t fucking fair.

  “Why does it have to be tonight?” Kevin asked.

  “They’ve got eyes in the sky. They’ll use satellite imagery to find us. If we find a nice safe hidey hole, within an hour those bastards will boot the door down.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Kevin lifted his head up and looked at Stephanie. “I think we should go back to that house.”

  “What the hell for? We already checked the place for weapons before we left.”

  “Steph, I was thinking about that soldier. He wore body armor. One of us could wear that. If it’s bulletproof, it’s got to be bite-proof as well.”

  Ernest spun around and hurried over to the kid. “Wait a minute, what did you just say?”

  “Oh, we captured a soldier, a bit back and …”

  “No, not that. You said armor, didn’t you?”

  Kevin nodded.

  Ernest started to chuckle. “Oh bloody hell. It looks like I get the dumb bastard medal award tonight. How could I have been so fucking stupid?” He patted the side of the truck. “It’s staring us all right in the face.” He ran over to the driver’s window, peered through the glass and whooped with joy when he saw the keys were still in the ignition. He pulled open the door and wrinkled his nose at the sour smell that wafted out of the cab. “Okay kids, I want you to get into the back. Let’s get this over and done with.”

  Stephanie grinned herself and tapped the side of the truck with her knuckles. “It’s a fucking armored truck. This baby is bound to be bulletproof. Hell, I bet it’s even missile-proof as well!”

  He watched the boy grab Stephanie’s hand, then pull the girl over to the open doors. They both groaned. Ernest sighed; he’d forgotten about the mess. Still, a bit of blood wouldn’t do them any harm, as long as neither of them got any of it in their mouth. He climbed into the cab and started the engine, hoping those two in the back had secured themselves. He had the feeling that this was going to be a very bumpy ride.

  Three soldiers turned into the street. He guessed that they must have heard the van start up. All of them raced towards the van, waving their arms in the air. He gunned the engine, then pressed down on the accelerator and headed straight for them. He shook his head, unable to grasp their stupidity. The sensible course of action would have been to just open fire; he doubted that even the toughened glass would be able to withstand a concentrated barrage of gunfire.

  “This is for killing a sweet old lady,” he said through gritted teeth.

  Two of the soldiers weren’t agile enough to get out of the way; the van clipped them as he drove past. Ernest missed the remaining soldier despite swerving towards him; still, two out of three was a good result.

  Ernest drove towards the fence, hoping that the surviving soldier would do the wrong thing and go check on his comrades. He also hoped that they had turned into deadies just as he bent down to check on them.

  Half a dozen suited figures scattered like bowling pins as the van ploughed through the wire fence. He heard a few bullets ping off the bodywork and prayed that the soldiers didn’t have anything larger in their arsenal, like a tank.

  “Holy fuck!” he gasped when the old church came into view. Despite all the mind-numbing terror he’d been through tonight, it still didn’t prepare him for the inhuman carnage and butchery a few metres in front of the van. It was a slaughter of biblical proportions. He saw dozens of separate groups of the vile things scattered around the churchyard, systematically ripping up human bodies and chewing on their flesh.

  Not everyone had succumbed to the dead horde. He saw a few survivors clinging on to high walls; a few had even managed to climb onto the remains of the roof. Ernest wanted to close his eyes so he didn’t have to look at them. He watched two of them stand up, and one had even begun to wave. It would have been so much easier if there had been no survivors. Those poor bastards must have thought he was the cavalry, and that Ernest Belmont was going to rescue them.

  There was just no feasible way to help them; either the deadies or the soldiers or both would swarm over them as soon as he stopped the van.

  “Mavis Watson would have tried to help them,” he muttered.

  Mavis was dead though. She’d lost her life in the mistaken belief that everybody was a good person deep down inside. Ernest knew that he was a good person deep down too, but he was also a realist.

  He recognised that waving man; he used to come into the mini-market nearly every day for the Daily Mirror and a pack of Golden Virginia. He’d always stop for a few minutes to pass the time of day with Ernest. He raced pigeons.

  Suddenly someone behind him opened up with something a little more powerful than a rifle. The noise was deafening; it sounded like hail hitting glass. He didn’t know just how much more punishment the van could take. He headed down the grass slope towards what was left of the cobbled road that ran alongside the church. He heard the girl in the back scream and felt something slam into the back of the partition; had they hit her? He daren’t shout out; instead, he prayed and tried to get a little more speed out of the vehicle. Two of the dead stepped out in front of the van, and he felt one go under the wheels. He tore his eyes off the road for one second to look around; some of the groups had gotten to their feet and were making their way towards the cemetery; it was almost as if they all knew where he was going.

  Ernest looked into his remaining wing mirror and almost wept with relief when he saw the soldiers weren’t pursuing them. They had their hands full now, as their gunfire had attracted the interest of a large crowd of the dead.

  His wing mirror broke off when he smashed through what was left of the cemetery gates; the mausoleum was now in sight. In two minutes they’d be there and on their way out of this nightmare. Ernest stopped the van and banged on the partition; he looked through the side window and saw a large number of the things heading towards the now-stationary vehicle. He picked up the bolt cutters, still wishing that he had his pool cue, and leaped out of the van.

  The other two joined him; they were both covered in blood.

  “Oh my fucking God!” gasped the girl. “Just look at the state of me.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before opening her eyes. “It’s okay, Ernest, it isn’t our blood.”

  Kevin passed him a metal baseball bat.

  “I found it in the back.” said Kevin.

  Ernest nodded and gratefully accepted it. The weight felt good. He strode forward and stepped over a fallen gravestone. There were eight of the shambling dead standing between them and their goal. He dropped the hammer and threw the bolt-cutters towards the mausoleum; he wished he had an extra pair of hands. A dead youth with long black hair, wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt, lumbered over. He swung the bat back, fought off the insane urge to shout ‘Fore!’ and smacked the end into the youth’s temple.

  “Where’s Darren’s body gone?” cried Kevin.

  Steph shook her head, “He dropped further into the cemetery.”

  The boy’s voice rose in fear, “Bollocks, it was here, I know it was,” he said, pointing to the ground. “You can even see the depression and the blood splats.”

  Ernest took his eyes off them when he felt another one coming towards him. An old woman dressed in a night shirt began to moan. She took a couple of steps forward and tripped over the fallen boy. Ernest slammed the bat into the back of her head, yelling in grim satisfaction when he heard her skull crack. He glanced behind him and watched Kevin fire his shotgun point blank at a dead copper’s head.

  “Come on!” screamed th
e girl. “Oh my God, look at that!”

  Ernest turned, his jaw dropping when he saw them; they were all coming towards them now. He turned back and dodged the snapping jaws of a young woman.

  “Get that gate open,” shouted Stephanie. “I’ll deal with the rest.” He waited till he saw her raise the pistol, and then ran over to where the bolt-cutters had landed.

  He scooped them up and darted over to the gates. The chain had already been snapped off. He spun around as the panting pair joined him. He pointed to the chain on the floor.

  “I didn’t do that,” he said.

  Kevin shook his head. “What the hell? It was locked, I swear it.”

  The girl pulled the gate open and looked inside. “Come on,” she said, “it’s not like we have a choice, do we?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  He ran the tips of his fingers across the smooth white stone, feeling as though he’d just met up with a very old and dear friend. It had been such a long time since he was last down here, at this very spot, back before his guilt got the better of him.

  A tumble of pleasant nostalgic memories flooded into his mind. Running his fingers over this stone had turned into a routine, this had become his lucky stone. Ernest used to believe that if he touched this before setting out on a job, not only would he return undetected, he’d also bring back a whole host of goodies ready to sell to his contacts in the markets and to the dodgy guys in the local pubs.

  This convenient route ran for over a mile under the houses; it had not only saved him from capture on more than one occasion, it had also helped to make life very comfortable for him and his family.

  At this very moment, Ernest would do anything to experience a bit of comfort. He wasn’t sure of the time, but right now, if this shit hadn’t landed on all their head, Ernest would most likely be wrapped up in his warm quilt, watching a bit of football and perhaps sipping a blended scotch.