The Fall Series (Book 3): The Fence Walker

by Cross, Stephen

  “I need them all,” he said.

  “Three items. You know how many requests we get? We can’t afford the time to look for all these things. It’s dangerous out there.” Ash sighed. “We go through this every week.”

  There were rumblings in the queue behind.

  Ash picked up the paper and looked at Jack's list. “What about we go for the blanket for Annie, the Calpol, and the new waterproofs?”

  “We need the chains,” said Jack.

  “You can’t. Any chains we find are going to the Fishers.”

  “Come on Ash, I need the chains to lock the beach-side panels on the Fence. The ropes aren’t doing it.”

  “Then you’ll have to talk to James,” she said, her voice raising slightly. “He’s put the chains down as a priority for the Fishers. We can’t lose another boat.”

  “They should learn to tie them properly then!”

  “Hey!” said a voice from behind Jack. He recognized the voice. It was Mark, one of the Fishers. Jack didn’t turn round.

  Ash glanced behind Jack. The queue snaked out the door of her small office. “I haven’t got time for this, Jack. Take it up with James. Now, you want the blanket, Calpol, and waterproofs, or you want nothing?”

  Jack sighed and nodded. “That’ll be fine.”

  “Good. We’ll do our best.” She looked behind Jack. “Morning Jane, how are you?”

  Jack moved to the left, his place in the queue gone, his turn over.

  He needed the chains.

  He walked out, ignoring the mutterings that followed him.

  Andy bounced in the back of the pick-up truck as they drove through the open gates surrounding the holiday camp. He watched as the gatekeepers rushed to pull them shut, Andy’s truck being the last in the convoy. Wooden spikes lined the first twenty yards or so of the exit road, pointing outwards at various heights. A number of bodies writhed in between and on the spikes. They would be cleared later. The spikes didn’t kill them and if you left them too long, their moaning would attract others.

  The flat-bed truck pulled to the right, heading away from the town of Tulloch, towards the nearby industrial and retail complex. Asda, Toys ‘r’ us, Pets World, Pound Land. A year into the Fall and there was still enough goods to make the Runs worthwhile.

  Andy felt his stomach tighten. It was similar to the feeling he used to get at take-off; his final pull on the stick to lift the large commercial jets he used to fly. Not fear, but trepidation and excitement, a heightened sense of awareness that seemed to bring a focus he had never found in any other aspect of his life; until now, leaving the safety of the holiday camp’s gates. Survival. Primeval circuits in his brain rewiring and lightning up the neurons that had been asleep for millennia; their sole purpose to identify predators. The root of fear.

  Four others were in the back of the truck with him. Two more in the front of the cab. The same repeated in the other two trucks. Eighteen in all.

  Empty roads, deserted and burnt out cars. Why were they burnt out? Exploded during a crash? An attempt to burn the dead inside? Makeshift and failed barriers? So many unfinished stories in this new world. So many half-tales, a world full of final chapters with no setup or context.

  A few drops of rain. Andy pulled his hood tighter. He wore an expensive leather jacket, it said Armani on the inside. Probably worth thousands of pounds, but free to Andy from one of the empty chalets. Motorcycle boots. Leather motorcycle trousers. Leather gloves. He had a helmet he would put on once they reached their destination.

  The truck swerved. Andy grabbed on to the metal sides.

  “Whoa, there!” laughed Bill, sitting opposite Andy. A broad man. Used to be a butcher. Handy with a knife.

  They raced passed a zombie, close to the side of the truck. It hissed at them and tried to follow, but soon shrank into the distance.

  A telegraph pole lay against some trees. Litter dotted the road. Out of place plastic containers, food packaging, children's toys here and there. No steadfast council operative to clean up the mess; the world was now like the ocean where flotsam and jetsam stumbled across the new waves of the land driven by wind, kicking animals, and shuffling zombies.

  “Here we go,” said Bill.

  They were nearing the entrance to the retail park. They slowed.

  Tens of zombies shambled in the large expansive car park. Only a handful of cars. Most people had managed to get their looting out of the way before being overrun.

  Dumb moaning and clicking teeth accompanied the undead like the background hum of a jet. It was their inner workings, their engine of desperation. He was used to the noise by now.

  The truck pulled to a stop at the entrance to the car park. The dead were aware of them now and had begun a slow shuffle towards the trucks. Andy pulled on his helmet and took his ax tight in his hands. The nerves tingling, his heart beating. His breathing hastened, almost unbearably loud in the confines of his helmet.

  The first truck in the convoy, Ash’s, revved into life and its wheel’s spun as it bolted into the car park. Ash was good, but her gung-ho attitude scared him sometimes. Although, that was probably what kept her alive.

  A quick burst of fire roared from the flamethrower in the back of her truck like a dragon. The wheels screeched to a halt, halfway across the car park, facing the path that led around the back of the supermarket. The truck idled and spewed another burst of fire. Longer this time; high red and yellow flames shot high into the sky, crackling and roaring.

  The zombies turned, only a few at first, but soon they were all stumbling towards the truck, which began to drive slowly, just keeping ahead of the zombies, emitting regular bursts of flame. Keep them interested, transfixed. It trundled slowly towards the wide path that went to the rear of the commercial park.

  Andy’s truck jerked to a slow crawl, following the other in front. Not too fast, not too loud. Didn’t want to attract attention. The white parking lines passed like markers underneath them. A burst in speed. Andy glanced to confirm that Ash had led the zombie pack to the back of the building, where they would be dispatched.

  They pulled up outside the doors of the supermarket. Gaudy and colorful special offer signs enticed them in. A dead body hung over a pile of tinned fruit.

  Dark windows. The deep bowels of the shop hidden in a building never meant to exist without electricity. It was a cavern; promising treasure but spiked with the terrors of the dead. A living grotto of myth.

  Andy jumped off the back of the truck with his companions. They didn’t speak. Eight in all from both trucks. They ran to the door of the building and crouched, four on each side, simultaneously checking the car park and the insides of the store for movement.

  The trucks waited, engines running, their drivers communicating to the team leads via handheld radio. He heard a burst of static. Jerry - at least he thought it was Jerry, hard to tell under the helmets and leather - signaled the first team to move into the supermarket.

  Four dark bodies moved in.

  Andy and his team of four, being led by Bill, waited, still watching the outside. A burst of static on Bill’s radio. ‘Clear’, came the solitary statement.

  Bill moved, Andy and the others followed.

  He remembered his first run. No order, no planning. No knowledge of the terrain. Just get in, look around, get the stuff, get out.

  The thing with zombies was, they would appear as if from nowhere. That was their skill. How they did it, he didn’t know. They would be in an empty shop, filling their backpacks with tins of tuna, and the next thing they would turn round to find all exit points crowded with the dead.

  They had lost a good number of people in the first few months.

  Not now. Everything was ordered, mapped. They knew the shops they raided inside out. They knew which aisle housed which product.

  Andy turned on his head torch.

  Through the checkouts. Turn left, towards what used to be the veg aisle. Andy was to get the evaporated milk. Two of his number broke off down an
other aisle. He and Bill left. They reached the end of the aisle. Somewhere in the background the dull echo of heavy leather boots, the rustle of bags being filled. The odd radio burst and flat voices in the darkness.

  Bill held up three fingers to indicate three minutes as Andy jogged past him up the frozen goods aisle. The shelves mostly empty; tins and non-perishables were the bounties.

  Andy pulled open his bag and paused. A noise from behind him. He snapped his head round, his torch illuminating a door. He hadn’t noticed the door before - it led into what looked like an office -invisible to shoppers in their focus to consume, and invisible to Runners in their focus to stay alive.

  Another noise. Like something falling. He glanced down the aisle. Bill was filling his bag. Andy waved to get his attention, but Bill didn’t see him.

  Another noise. Was it crying, muffled?

  He wasn’t meant to go anywhere new on his own. You were meant to go in pairs.

  Definitely crying.

  Andy sneaked over to the door and pushed the handle. it wasn’t closed. The door opened slowly into a compact realm of darkness. In the shadows was a desk, a chair, a cupboard.

  He took a step in.

  A loud thunk rattled through his brain, and somehow he was on the floor. A pain in his neck. Something moved towards him and he instinctively held up his hands, open palms, he grabbed what was coming towards him. It was a baseball bat. He pulled at it.

  “Hey!” shouted Bill. “Get back, now!”

  There was a pause in the struggle and all weight from the bat was gone. It was in Andy’s hand. He shuffled back to the far wall and pushed himself up.

  “You alright?” said Bill, standing in the doorway, his large machete held high.

  Andy nodded. “Good,” he said.

  Bill backed up, out of the room, a hand guiding Andy to follow. “Ok, whoever you are, get yourselves out into the open, nice and slow.” He keyed his radio. “Jerry, need some backup, aisle one.”

  Crying again. A baby.

  Bill held up a torch to the door of the small office. A man walked out; ruddy complexion, large face, large hands. Broad. Somewhere in his late fifties or sixties with a defiant strong face. He waited by the door and held out a protective arm for the next person to emerge.

  A woman in her twenties, long bedraggled hair. Tired. She carried a baby.

  “Sorry,” said the man, nodding towards Andy. “Just trying to be careful.”

  Andy took off his helmet. “It’s ok,” said Andy. “No damage done.”

  The man put an arm around the woman and said, “You ok love? Hows little Eddy?”

  “He’s ok,” said the woman. “He’s hungry.”

  “You have any weapons, put them down now,” said Bill.

  “How about you do the same?” said the woman, firing a sharp glance at Bill.

  “It’s ok,” said the man. “Do it, Ellie, it’s ok.”

  Ellie passed the baby to the man and took a knife from out of her belt. She put it on the floor, then took the baby back. Little Eddy was crying freely now.

  Four more people arrived in the darkness. “What’s going on?” said one of them. Jerry.

  “It’s ok,” said Andy. “I found these guys in the office. There was a misunderstanding, but it’s all ok now. Everything’s ok.”

  “Everything cool?” said Jerry looking at Bill. “These guys ok?”

  “Need checking for weapons, but,” he glanced at Andy. “I think they’re good.”

  Andy approached them both slowly and did a quick pat down. “No weapons.”

  Jerry keyed the radio. “Ash, we need immediate extraction. Got some refugees.”

  “You want to come with us?” said Andy.

  Ellie looked at the man, uncertainty and mistrust in her eyes; the wary eyes of a wild animal - but only the normal look of refugees, those who had been roaming the dangerous hinterlands, the Wilds, for months.

  “We have places to stay,” said Andy, “warmth. Food for your… for little Eddy.”

  “Sorry about your head,” said the man. “I’m Mac, and this is Ellie and Eddy.”

  Later that evening, Andy received the telling off he knew was coming.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” said Ash. She stood in the kitchen of their small chalet, the lamplight casting her dark features into an angry map of shadows. Her eyes glowed fiercely. She was shaking her head and her hands were on her hips.

  “You would’ve done the same thing,” said Andy in an even voice. He stood at the opposite end of the table, nursing a green tea - his usual tipple before bed. Ash had been working late, cataloging the spoils from the Run. He suspected she had allowed herself to work late in order to calm down. He dreaded to think how angry she had been after getting Bill’s report.

  “The hell I would,” said Ash. “Look - these days the Runs seem like ordered and well-tended events. Everyone knows what they’re doing, knows where they should be, and knows where all the shit is that we’re looking for. It wasn’t like this before.”

  Andy put down his tea. He knew she was right, and it would do him no good to interrupt.

  She continued, her voice full of exasperation more than anything. “We lost a hell of a lot of people on those Runs back in the first few months. I saw a seventeen-year-old kid getting mauled. Jack couldn’t face going out again after that.”

  “Well, Jack’s a bit crazy anyhow,” said Andy, immediately regretting it.

  “That’s not fair, you don’t know the shit he’s gone through.”

  “We’ve all gone through shit!” said Andy, the blood rising. His attempts to ride the wave and let the argument burn itself out failing quickly.

  “Then you should know why we have the rules we do!” shouted Ash back.

  Andy sighed and stared at the flame from the small oil lamp sitting on the kitchen table. “Look, I’m sorry, Ash. Just, in the moment, things happen and I guess I made a wrong judgment. It felt right at the time. Hearing a baby cry, there’s not much else I could’ve done.”

  Ash deflated a little. “I know. Even though we think we’ve got the Runs nailed now, I know, things happen, like you say. Honestly, I might have done the same thing.”

  He knew that Ash had gone off plan herself during Runs. Ignoring protocol, entering new rooms unaccompanied. Being the leader of the Runs it was kept on the quiet, good example and all that, but she would tell him in the darkness of the nights as they lay together in bed, the thin walls of the chalet rattling gently against the strong coastal winds.

  “Shall we just go to bed?” said Andy.

  Flickering flames, dancing patterns of darkness across Ash’s cheeks, her white eyes piercing. “I get worried. I don’t want to lose you. I’ve just found you.”

  He covered the few feet between them and embraced her, her small frame tucking snugly into his arms.

  Chapter 2

  The school was in the holiday park’s old sports hall, part of the complex surrounding the large car park. A number of tables had been laid out in the hall in small groups, each for a different age group; under 5’s, 6-10’s, then the teenagers. A number of tables sat empty in anticipation of new arrivals; more people were coming every month, either walking through the front door or being found on a Run.

  The school had been set up only two months after the Fall - a matter of necessity. The adults needed to get the park safe - that would take a lot of work. What do you do with the kids? Send them to school.

  Jack kneeled down and kissed Annie on the head. “You be a good girl now, and I’ll see you later at Peter and Mary’s, ok?”

  Annie nodded. “Be careful Daddy,” she said. She always said that.

  “I will.”

  She waved and then walked off to join a group of girls about her age, standing around a desk.

  There were about eighty kids here now under the tutelage of four volunteers, one of whom had been a real teacher - Mrs. Rutledge. Her years of experience helped make the school a school; lesson planning,
discipline, a curriculum of sorts.

  Jack walked across the hall towards the exit. He nodded to another parent.

  Then it heard it, as he normally did. A few sniggers. It was usually the boys.

  “Mumbles man,” whispered one blonde kid to Jack’s right.

  “Crazy mumbles,” said another, with a funny affection to his voice, so he sounded like a drunk cartoon character.

  He glanced back to the where Annie was. Her eyes flitted to the group of boys laughing at her Dad. She looked at Jack. He smiled. She turned away, her head down, moving further into the group she stood with.

  “Mumble bumbly!” he heard as he walked out of the hall, loud raucous laughter following him. They didn’t even try to hide it.

  Jack went straight from the school hall to James’s office, which was in the same complex. It was the same office James used before the Fall; he had been the manager of Tulloch Bay holiday park, and since the Fall, de facto leadership had fallen to him. Everyone seemed happy with the job he was doing, so that’s how things had stayed.

  Jack knocked on the door. James had asked to see him. It must have been about the chains for the fence.

  “Come in,” said James.

  Jack pushed open the door and walked in, taking a seat opposite James. “Hi, how're things?”

  James sighed and ran a hand through his thinning grey hair. He was only a few years older than Jack, maybe mid-forties, but he had aged a lot in the past few months.

  “Well, still no closer to getting electricity, We’re low on gas cylinders and having trouble sourcing new ones, and one of our standard food banks, the Asda out on the main road, is nearly done. We have more and more new people arriving every week, and we’re running out of space. Apart from that, things are good.”

  Jack had no answer and stared dumbly at James.

  James smiled. “I’m sorry Jack, you don’t need to hear about all this stuff. It’ll get sorted. All these things always do. How’s Annie?”

  Jack’s eye veered to the picture on James’s crowded desk. A photo of James with his wife and his young boy, taken not too long before the Fall. They were both gone now.