by Colley, Ryan
When I was happy about the amount I’d cut away, I picked up the SA80, removed the magazine and made sure there wasn’t a bullet in the chamber.
“Oh, I see now,” Keith nodded, realising what I was doing. I pulled my glove back on and flexed my hand a few times, clasping the SA80 as if I were going to use it. I pointed it out the back of the van, just to be safe, and squeezed the trigger.
“Much better,” I said smiling at Keith as my finger moved freely behind the guard.
“More comfortable, isn’t it?” Keith nodded knowingly. Keith was smiling, and so was I … awkward male bonding. Is there such a thing as a reverse-Stockholm syndrome? Was I becoming attached to my hostage?
More driving. More cramped van. It was horrible in the back – the passage of time felt non-existent. Even worse was the lack of control I felt over what we were doing. I wouldn’t have minded the journey, had I been driving. If I was driving, I knew we were going as fast as the van could manage. Taking a literal backseat on things, everything was out of my hands and I needed to accept it. I kept wanting to tell Kirsty to speed up, but it wouldn’t have helped.
We were making our way through a housing estate – houses either side of us, plenty of side roads and crescents. It was strangely peaceful and I found myself watching the world outside. I missed the world – the world of civilization that was. The bustle of a living world – it would have been a welcome distraction. We came to a set of traffic lights, which Kirsty just sped through before the van screeched to a stop and threw me into a heap on the floor.
“Damn,” Kirsty said. “I almost missed that!”
Leaning forward and looking out of the window, I saw there was a row of specialist shops along the side of the road. A reptile store. A newsagent. And a garage!
“Awesome!” I grinned, ignoring the pain that radiated through me as a result of my sudden impact. The garage door was wide open – both the doorway and shutters for vehicles. I tried to peer in, an overwhelming sense of dread hit me as I did. I said cautiously, “Park outside … just in case.”
Kirsty nodded and pulled up just outside. I scooped up the silencer and screwed it onto the SA80, Kirsty took the machete, and Stephanie sat silently without moving. I didn’t trust her with a gun in her current state, and the way Kirsty looked at the shotgun, I think she felt the same. I made the decision to give Kirsty the Bengelli alongside her blade.
“Keep an eye of Steph,” I told Keith as we left. “And honk the horn should something come up.”
Keith nodded and I departed with Kirsty.
“I’m thinking you let me handle it,” Kirsty whispered, as we approached the open shutters. I looked at her quizzically. “I have the machete, it’s silent … we don’t want to alert any undead nearby.”
That was good enough for me, but I wouldn’t be totally unprepared – I would be close behind and ready to unleash hell should the need arise.
We crept forward slowly, foot over foot and ever so carefully. I kept a couple of metres between Kirsty, just in case I needed to spring into action. I had the rifle pressed firmly into my shoulder and ready to fire.
“Ready?” Kirsty whispered to me.
“Always,” I replied sternly. My finger hovered over the trigger, it would take less than half a second for me to squeeze if the situation forced me too.
“Come and get me,” Kirsty proceeded to request the empty air in front of us, her voice a little louder than if she’d been talking to me. Without any announcement of their arrival, two zombies wandered out from the garage. They had a slow saunter to their step, as if they were unsure why they’d been summoned. They were illuminated by the bright sun, yet they didn’t squint as they left the darkness – not that I expected them to.
The moment their sights were on us, their walk turned into a sprint and they charged. Their movement hastened to visual stimuli of the living. Kirsty instinctually sensed I was about to press the trigger because she held up her hand to stop me. I paused and, with that, Kirsty swung the blade like a baseball bat and sunk it into the first zombie. Its skull split and the world gained an extra sickening smell as the brain spilt out. Just another day in the zombie apocalypse. Kirsty used the momentum of the collapsing corpse to wrench the machete free in one swift motion.
I wanted to see a zombie killed by something other than a machete or a rifle, or even a gun for that matter. What about a good old-fashioned meat cleaver or mallet? Or bare hands? I would even settle for … and that’s when I stopped the inappropriate thought. What was wrong with me? Calm down. Breathe. Those were bad thoughts. Even if they’re monsters, it didn’t make it right. Survival wasn’t an excuse – there was still right and wrong, and everything about my thoughts were wrong. I had to maintain my moral balance, and I needed to remember it. I watched Kirsty dispatch the second zombie with a cold and calculated determination. She took no pleasure in doing so. She was just doing what she needed to do. I needed to take a page out of her book. I needed to ask how she did it …
“I told you I could deal with it,” Kirsty said calmly, wiping the machete off on the dead man’s overalls.
“So you did,” I said with a tight smile. I couldn’t help but feel proud of her. She was brave and fierce, and she just kept evolving! She was truly someone to look up to. In fact, it felt patronising to say I was proud of her.
“Any others in here?” she called into the darkness of the garage and, when there was no reply, she tapped the shutters a few times. They rattled with the sound of metal on metal but we still did not disturb anything within.
“I’ll look for the light switch,” I shrugged, and headed for the smaller human-sized door.
There was paperwork everywhere and the small metal desk had been upturned. There was a key cabinet on the wall, which the small door had been torn from. Keys for various locks littered the floor. Cars, buildings, cabinets – who knew what fitted where? Right of the door was exactly what I was looking for – several light switches. I flipped them all until everything in the building was illuminated with a yellow hum. The office I stood in was tiny, probably reserved solely for administrative purposes. The window which faced into the garage showed two car lifts, previously used to raise and repair cars. One was occupied and raised about a foot, but the other was empty. We’d use that one for the van. I could see Kirsty stooped over something.
“What is it?” I questioned her, walking into the actual garage.
“A struggle happened here,” Kirsty sighed sadly, crouching over a corpse. The corpse was female and wasn’t wearing overalls – not a garage worker at least. Her arms were torn to shreds with bite marks, but that wasn’t her only injury. There was also a bullet wound in her head. Her body looked … fresh. She was recently dead. Although recently was still a big stretch of a timeline. Days? Weeks? I didn’t know. What I did know was that her corpse wasn’t as decayed as the men in the overalls.
“She probably wandered in here. Got surprised by the guys and they attacked her … she fought them off and that’s why the wrench is there,” I said, pointing to the bloody wrench protruding from a hole in one head, with an equally big hole in the other head. I proceeded to look around and saw a massive pool of dried blood against one of the walls. I pointed to it, “She bled out there, at some point someone put a bullet in her skull … and now we’re here.”
“You could have been a detective,” Kirsty smiled at me. Smiling next to a corpse … what an odd image.
“I try,” I said through a tight-lipped grin. I looked at the dead woman closely, an overwhelming urge to learn more about her came over me.
The woman was pretty, or had been when she was alive. The necrosing and mottled grey flesh saw away to any beauty there had once been. What hair hadn’t been ripped out of her head was blonde. Her pink dress was stained with mud and blood, and one of her pockets bulged. I cautiously reached in, ready for her to spring to life despite the head wound, and pulled out a debit card.
“Sammi Jo,” I said quietly, reading the woma
n’s name. I shook my head, feeling a little overwhelmed – it was hot and there was just so much death. An endless waste of life. When would it end? One thing was for certain, this woman managed to take out two of the undead by herself before her injuries got the best of her – a badass in her own right.
I looked over my shoulder to the van where Keith and Stephanie were still inside. My face soured slightly and I said seriously. “How do you do it?”
Kirsty knew what I meant. There was no hesitation in her understanding and that was one thing that was amazing about her.
“It isn’t easy. Every time is a struggle … every confrontation,” she said, each word delivered as if it carried the weight of the world.
“I know that,” I nodded in agreement. I looked around again, just to make sure we were alone. “Can I confess something to you?”
“Of course,” she said with a smile that lit her entire face. I hadn’t seen one of those in a long time.
“Every time I face another zombie … see another kill. I feel myself slip a little more. I enjoy it, but I don’t like enjoying it,” I admitted, not breaking eye contact with her while I waited for an answer. She stared at me, expression unchanging until she sagged and her smile faltered.
“We all have different ways of dealing with it,” she said simply. “You find humour and enjoyment in what you have to do. I distance myself and it’s almost like watching someone else perform those actions … it’s when you don’t care about enjoying it that you need to worry. You’re doing alright.”
We both smiled at each other. I believed what she said, and I knew that I needed to keep an eye on myself. As long as I did that, I could keep the creeping madness in check.
“What are you two lovebirds doing?” Keith called from the van, dragging us away from the weird moment we shared.
“Making sure it’s safe for you, princess,” I retorted sarcastically.
“Well, hurry up and let me move the van in there. I don’t like being exposed like this,” he replied. Even from where I stood, I could hear the smile he wore on his face.
“He’s right, let’s get going,” Kirsty nodded in agreement.
We got to work clearing the space to move the van in – including moving the bodies outside. It was excruciating work. Every movement felt like a monumental effort. Being in a heavy leather jacket made everything so hot, mixed with the weather and the strenuous activity, it made me feel sick. I almost took it off, but the fear of being exposed stopped me. I didn’t want to get caught off-guard. I hoped it would pass as we needed to work.
Kirsty found a notepad and began writing a list of things we needed, with Keith adding the majority to the list. We wanted wheels, extra panels from cars, and an array of tools. Stephanie, feeling a little more herself, disappeared for a short while and came back with a CD player.
“We have music,” she said meekly, holding it up and indicating that her sulking had ended. We all grinned.
“Great!” I smiled enthusiastically, glad to see she was acting like her old self. I stared at the van, which we had backed onto the car lift. “We just need to empty it and then I think we’re good to go!”
CHAPTER 14
Unloading the van took longer than expected – a testament to how much we were travelling with. We needed to lighten the van as much as possible so that we could safely raise it. I didn’t even know if the lift was designed to support our sort of vehicle, but we’d see. It was also the perfect time to do an inventory check and potentially dispose of anything we didn’t need. With the rush we’d left the container site in, I didn’t entirely know what was in the van.
We had two SA80’s and Benelli with enough ammunition for each gun, with excess for the SA80 since we were minus one. There was also bullets for the handgun we no longer had, which could be used for trade if it came to it. We had a machete and a knife too.
There was a small toolbox under one of the seats, and we still had a fair bit of food and water also … for one person anyway. If I was travelling alone, the supplies would’ve lasted me for my journey – as a group, we’d be lucky to make it stretch to a week. We were losing food and water too fast. We’d intended to carefully ration the supplies, but that was easier said than done. Self-control was difficult when you were hungry but had food. We had bedsheets still, not that we had a chance to use them. And, for some reason, I still had a few tear gas grenades. They would be useless against the undead, but effective against people – that was if we didn’t hinder ourselves through incorrect use.
Then there was the disposable barbeque and the sausages, the latter had started to look a bit … odd. We’d have to use them soon, perhaps as a celebration for our newly modified vehicle – although setting aside time seemed so difficult.
We had our maps and odd bits of paperwork to help our journey. We had our newly acquired CD player to go with our CD wallet, which should lighten the mood going forward. I had a mosquito net hood in the back with a waterproof coat and thermals – mostly useless in the increasing heat. I’d spent so long preparing for the extremes of the far future that I hadn’t thought about my immediate future and what I’d need. Even what I was wearing wasn’t appropriate – I was too hot and being in a stuffy garage didn’t help either.
After Kirsty had moved the van inside, we had rolled down the shutters as quietly as possible. It obscured any view of us and would muffle any noise we made. However, the temperature in the garage was climbing and any air circulation was lost. I was sweating, almost panting.
“Everything ok?” Stephanie asked me, eyeing me cautiously.
“Fine,” I grumbled. I was uncomfortable and it was making me miserable. I saw Stephanie had Thundy and my phone in her hands. I said as a warning, “Leave them alone.”
Stephanie awkwardly put them down on the side. I walked over to Thundy and stroked him for comfort with a sad smile. He’d be home soon.
Eventually, the van was slowly raised on the lift as I stood back and watched carefully. Turns out the garage had been built with vans in mind, because there was plenty of space and the lift handled it effortlessly.
We all agreed that Keith should lead the repair – he was the closest one to an expert, even with his limited knowledge. Stephanie wasn’t pleased with us all working together, as anything involving Keith didn’t bode well in her mind. I reminded her that sabotaging the vehicle wouldn’t be of any use to him since he would be stranded also. It was in his best interests to have the vehicle in the best condition possible. With that said, Stephanie threw a tantrum again and sat in the corner alone. I shook my head and gave Keith the go-ahead. He then proceeded to check each part of the van for faults. The tyres were almost bald, and there was some sort of fibre exposed where the rubber had been worn through. Keith said the brake was a little damaged and was leaking fluid. It seemed a lot, but he was confident he could fix both of those things with everything at hand. I undid his restraints and watched as he tightened something on the brake line, refilled the fluid and bled them so there was air in line – which he claimed fixed the leak – before he replaced the tyres with a few spares they had lying about. Not a single one had the same tread pattern, but a lack of matching treads was a first world problem that we didn’t have time for.
The motor oil was emptied and cleaned through before being replaced with new. When Keith was ready, we lowered the van so that he could top up the coolant and wiper fluid. He even replaced a little clip that sat behind the clutch pedal, explaining that it became brittle in older vehicles and could render the vehicle useless should it go. I just nodded, pretending I understood everything he said about.
After Keith had replaced and fixed the damaged parts, we took to discussing any modifications we could do. We wanted to protect the windows from any assaults which might occur in the future. Kirsty said she would handle it and disappeared through the door with the SA80 and machete in hand. While she was gone, we discussed how we could protect the undercarriage from damage. We were in agreement that we needed
something to hang from the bumper, which would stop debris getting in anything important and damaging it when we turned the undead into jam with the front of the van. My mind briefly flickered to the memory of the busted tyre that James had helped me fix all that time ago, and the thought just made me weary. Keith looked over and informed me that we didn’t need anything major to protect it, just something to deter anything from going under. We eventually decided that a simple piece of car panelling would do and, with some effort, we removed the bonnet of the other car.
“A snowplough would have been better,” Keith mumbled as we struggled with the unwieldy object.
“Yeah, good luck finding one,” I said through gritted teeth. It wasn’t even like the simple panelling was heavy, it was just awkward to hold.
We marked areas where we need to make holes, so we could affix it to the front of the van, and then drilled said holes. We carefully hoisted it into place on the front of the van, ensuring it was not scraping the ground, and used a lot of zip ties to hold it in place. We didn’t want it not to move, as there had to be a little give to disperse some of the impact. It looked hideous – but if it looked stupid and worked, then it wasn’t stupid.
Before long, there was an odd rattling outside.
“What the–” I said questioningly, looking at Keith. He shrugged, and I reached for the SA80 nearby. I had a moment of realisation that the gun had been there the entire time and Keith could have reached for that at any moment. But he didn’t. How much more proof did I need that he wasn’t a threat?
“Just a little more,” a voice within me replied, and it was right. I would always need ‘a little more’ before I was happy.
I braced myself against the door frame while staring outside, gun in hand. I held my breath, fully aware that we could also be among the dead if we got trapped. I relaxed, a tension dispersing from my entire body when I realised the rattling was just Kirsty with a shopping trolley in tow.