Ellie went to the cloakroom and picked up her coat.
“What are you doing?” said Jack.
“I’m going to get Mac, to warn people.”
“You can’t go out there, Ellie!”
The urgency in Jack’s voice stalled her.
“Why not?”
“Because there are hundreds of them coming, and there’s something else. The people, there’s a riot going on, now, at the leisure center. A fight between the originals and newcomers. It’s not safe, nowhere’s safe anymore.”
Ellie opened the door, then paused and hugged Eddy, still crying. She shook her head as if shutting out internal thoughts she didn’t want, and shut the door, stepping back into the chalet.
“If he’s not back in thirty minutes, then I’m going to look for him.”
Thirty minutes would be too late, thought Jack, but he didn’t say anything. He wanted Ellie here. There was a higher chance of them surviving together.
“Let’s close all the blinds, lock all the doors and windows. Keep quiet. If they don’t know we’re in here, then maybe they’ll pass.”
Ellie sat down slowly next to Jack. She rocked Eddy, “Shhhh, shhhh, go to sleep, little man, go to sleep.”
Mac huffed and puffed his way over the dunes. The few months he had spent in the Wilds had trimmed his sides, but he was never going to be a fit man. The Fall hadn’t interrupted his exercise-free life for the first three months - holed up in his pub with his wife, Ellie and the baby, he had carried on as usual; plenty to eat, a good whiskey every night. It wasn't until the fire and the death of his wife that he and Ellie had hit the Wilds. From house to house, farm to farm, tents, and even under railway embankments. His trousers had become baggy and walking easier. Since arriving at the holiday camp, however, his sedentary life had returned, and it was amazing how quickly his fitness had gone.
“You stupid old bastard,” he wheezed to himself as he topped what seemed an endless parade of sand dunes. Jack was long gone; he had sped up the hills like they weren’t there. Left him for dust.
Well, if that’s the way Jack wanted to play it, he could. Jack had troubles alright, but everyone did. He would put away his anger with him for now and talk to him about it properly later. No use causing a stink now; everyone was going to need everyone’s help, what with all them dead’uns on the beach.
Mac glanced behind. Nothing but heavy grey rain and towering sand dunes. Hard to imagine hundreds of the buggers marching towards the fence. Maybe they would change their minds, see a rabbit or something and chase it all the way into the woods.
Then again, maybe they wouldn’t.
Mac made it through the last sand dunes, onto the tarmac, and, not knowing it, followed Jack’s trail towards the leisure center. He was going to warn James. He had considered going to warn Ellie first but figured he could get to James and back before the buggers got here. They had to get over the sand dunes first, and he reckoned they would be slower even than him.
“Hey, Mac,” it was Peter with his wife Mary, walking back towards their chalet. Good pair them. He’d shared a few drinks with Peter. “What’s up with Jack?”
“You’ve seen him?” said Mac, taking the excuse for a quick breather.
“Running same way you are, didn’t stop, didn’t say anything.”
He could have bloody said something, thought Mac. “Get back to your chalet, and lockdown. Hundreds of dead’uns on the beach. Came from the water I reckon. Heading this way.”
Alarm on the old couples face, this shouldn’t happen, not at our time in life. “The Fence will hold them,” said Mary, her voice wavering.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” said Mac, starting off again. “Just get back and lockdown!”
It took Mac a few minutes of light jogging, as fast as he could muster, to get to the leisure center. Chaos met him. A hundred odd people fighting, rioting, duking it out. What the hell was this about?
He didn’t have time to think about it. He couldn’t afford to, once they found out about the zombies they’d pull together, forget about whatever it was they were arguing about.
He ran around the outside of the melee to James’ office. James was standing by the door, watching the riot.
He nodded at Mac as he approached. “Mac...” The man looked tired. His hair suddenly a shade greyer, his eyes heavier than a few days ago.
“Just been at the Fence with Jack. Hundreds of zombies on the beach, heading this way. They’ll go through that Fence like it’s gas.”
James stared at Mac for a few moments, although he hadn’t really seen Mac. “Ah yes, the ropes. They’ve gone, have they? I guess Jack was right then.”
“What do we do?” said Mac.
“What do you think we do?” said James.
Mac turned round to the rioters. Splinter groups were spreading through the chalets. A trail of smoke was rising from nearby.
Forty years of owning his own bar had taught him one thing at least; the power of a loud voice, with just the right tone. He’d had years to perfect it. He cupped his mouth with his hands.
“HEY! HEEEY! THE ZOMBIES ARE COMING! ON THE BEACH, HUNDREDS OF THEM! THE ZOMBIES ARE COMING!”
The people on the nearest edge were the first to take note. Mac was sure he saw one man stop in mid-swing.
“THE ZOMBIES ARE COMING! NOW!”
The crowd stilled, confused mumbles rippled through the mass like waves.
“If you value this place,” said Mac, “then get your homes safe, and get your weapons, we need to fight!”
Chapter 12
Tulloch Beach stretched for two miles, almost directly along the west-east line of latitude. Either side was buttressed by two large and powerful headlands, their massive grey rocks rising out of the angry waves with defiance against the relentless heave of the sea. Slowly, but surely, they were losing ground, but the fight would continue. For it’s all the rocks knew to do. To hold their ground.
The beach bent in a slight crescent, its orange sand stretching for a few hundred meters from the dunes to the first tentative laps of water. In better times the beach would be full of families behind windbreakers with picnic baskets, careless children tottering, dog walkers throwing balls and sticks, surfers running with excitement to the large swell, teenagers with stolen vodka, old men with milk-bottle white legs under their rolled-up trousers.
For fifty years or so, a blink of an eye, Tulloch Bay had attracted millions of visitors. The first-timers, the regulars, the curious, the day trippers. The little town, which sat nestled under the eastern head, struggled with its cobbled streets and thin walkways to accommodate the wide 4X4s from the city.
An uncertain, but stable, truce between the residents and the transients. Boutique shops, modern bars, traditional pubs, the Italian restaurant, the Indian, the Chinese and the Mexican. And of course the chippy.
The mass of dead flesh treading on the hard wet sand cared for none of this. Maybe some had once been the holidaymakers, the barmen, the mechanics, and plumbers. They didn’t know anymore, they didn’t care. Their life was one uncertain blur of dull sensation and reaction. Months under the water in the black thickness of cold meant nothing to them. The emergence from the sea was no revelation, no escape, no atonement. It was a chance change in direction, just one step different from the next, driven by a desire that somewhere was something they needed. And now their dulled senses, their indifferent perceptions, dragged at them like dog leads.
The first of the army, covered in seaweed, a comic fancy-dress, walked into the fence. Its skin was wet and soft and green, the top layer reduced to a thick slime that sheered against the Fence. A wire caught its cheek, sinking into the weak flesh before pulling its face in two, like separating congealed pudding with a knife. It felt none of this; it continued to walk against the fence, sliding left and right.
Others arrived behind it, squeezing the first arrival into a wet mess within minutes. The mass built, writhing and pushing and moaning like a terrible insect ne
st. Limbs entangled, skin and intensities trampled underfoot. Thick slivers of hair-covered scalps slipping off bald white skulls.
The Fence was young and inexperienced, its roots were shallow and its walls malleable like a budding branch. It didn’t have the depth or strength and resolve of the rocks. It yawed and bent under the weight of the undead throng. Its weak spots gave way first: the loose panels, held with the rotting rope that Jack had examined and marked for work only thirty minutes ago, popped and slapped onto the damp saturated sand. The first of the horde fell through the gap. They landed on the sand, their faces crushed under the weight of those that followed, their brains turning to a black and yellow mush, never to know the sweet taste of flesh again.
One weakness penetrated, and the Fence began to unravel like an old sweater. Poles bent, branches broke, ropes snapped, and panels fell.
The horde spilled over like the tide.
Jeremy Eagles felt he had spent a productive life as an asset manager for a large London Firm of accountants. He had brought a lot of wealth to the company, which had translated into a fine life for himself and his family. His children had enjoyed the highest of educations the country had to offer, his wife had dined in the finest of restaurants and enjoyed numerous holidays a year; jaunts to the Maldives, safaris, the boat in France, and the high-end European city breaks booked on a whim.
Their large house in Richmond had operated mainly as a base for the children to return to when not boarding - for Christmas, birthdays and the likes. Hotels and their four holiday homes had housed the couple for the rest of the time,
When his wife, Imelda, died three years ago, Jeremy hadn’t been overly concerned. He would miss her of course, but he had grown tired of her to some degree. Her continuous demands for more, her eternal dissatisfaction was trying. When you spend your time in affluent circles, there is always someone richer, and they are usually delighted to let you know. The bigger yacht, the more expensive furniture, the more exclusive dress. Imelda fell for it all.
After a suitable time of mourning, he relocated to their holiday chalet in Tulloch, at least for the summer months. He enjoyed the quiet idyll of the seaside resort, and he had time to work on his vegetable garden; it backed onto the sand dunes, and he liked the isolation. By the time of the Fall, he had an impressive haul of veg growing in the small plot behind his chalet.
Jeremy took a sip from his cuppa as he stood by the patios doors and watched the heavy raindrops pummel the leaves of his potatoes. He would have to prune them tomorrow, once the weather was through, or they would go bad.
He had met the Fall with indifference. He missed his children, of course, but one lived in Australia, and the other in America. They had only contacted him on the big occasions, through duty rather than desire. It made him sad a long time ago, but he had found peace with his children's indifference by the time of the Fall.
So there he as, seemingly unaffected. He lived in the same place and missed few people. It was fitting that he would be the first casualty of the Great Swarming.
When the zombie appeared at the back of his gate, Jeremy was caught with a type of silent shock. For a moment he wasn’t sure if he was dreaming. He had managed to get this far into the Fall without actually coming face to face with any of the undead. Too old for the Runs, and with no real need to leave the park, the zombies remained an abstraction to him.
It took him a few seconds to realize he was actually looking at a zombie. The lolling walk that brought the zombie to the rickety gate separating his garden from the dunes was unfamiliar to him. At first, he thought he was looking at a drunk. But it was too early, surely, even for the newcomers?
The next thing he took in was the mouth. The man’s mouth (his subconscious had assigned gender at least), seemed to be hanging off. The left side of it gnawed slowly as if eating a never-ending marshmallow. Spittles of grey-green drool hung like wobbling stalactites.
The moan was what woke him to the possibility he was looking at a zombie, He had heard the moans before in the distance. Bereft of all humanity, empty animalistic groans full of pain and suffering, they were unmistakable
Shouldn’t the Fence be keeping these things out? thought Jeremy. That hippy Jack was in charge of the Fence. Must have shirked his duties.
Jeremy felt neither anger nor malice towards the zombie pushing at his gate. It was merely a pest, like the slugs that threatened his crop, and would have to be dealt with. He realized a sharp excitement in his gut.
He put on his rain mac and stepped into the pouring storm. The rain wasn’t unusually cold, but the wind was strong. It kept blowing his thin plastic hood down, allowing the rain to splatter his bald head. He fumbled with the lock of his shed and took out a lump hammer. The creature became audibly more excited as Jeremy prepared its doom.
Or was that another sound? A second moan?
Jeremy turned to see two zombies at the gate. The rusty catch let go, and the gate flung open, allowing the two decrepit souls access to the garden. They charged, as best zombies could, towards Jeremy, their hands raised. Jeremy almost laughed, their existence a cliche of every terrible horror movie he had watched in his youth.
He raised the lump hammer. His gardening kept him relatively fit; he was no stranger to heavy work. As the first zombie approached, he swung hard, and with a satisfying clunk, the head caved in, and the zombie fell. He repeated the process with the other.
He only had a few seconds of triumph. Three more had forced their way in, and behind them, the bushes and grasses rustled wildly, the sound of many, many moans threatening something Jeremy didn’t want to see
Like a child who suddenly finds he can’t touch the bottom of the swimming pool, Jeremy panicked. He turned to go back indoors but tripped over the body of his first victim.
As he scrambled to get up, a hand clasped against his leg. He had a brief moment of discomfort before the excruciating agony of bony fingers piercing the skin and muscle of his calf. He let out a yell and tried to get his hammer, but the shock shut down his vision to a white mist, and he could see nothing. The zombie grabbed the muscle and pulled it clean of his bone, a memorable ripping sound accompanying the shattering white heat of pain.
The blood, the bare flesh, the feeding frenzy. Jeremy lived long enough to feel his intestines being pulled from his ripped open stomach.
Ethan and Charlie liked playing in the woods. They were told they shouldn’t play in the woods, but then mum told them not to do lots of things, and if they listened to mum then they wouldn’t ever leave the chalet. It’s not like they were kids anymore. Ethan was eight, and his younger brother Charlie was only five, but Ethan could look after him.
They had built a base in the woods, using planks of wood, bits of rope, even some metal for an aerial to try and get in touch with Dad. Mum said that Dad had gone away and wasn’t coming back. He had left before the zombies came, and visited them once a week. He said he wanted to visit more, but Mum wouldn’t let him. Ethan didn’t know why they had to shout at each other all the time, he just liked them both and wanted them both around. But now Dad never visited.
So he got angry with Mum sometimes. He figured that Mum had told Dad to stay away. That was why they had the aerial. Dad was always building stuff to do with phones. “If Dad is looking for us, Charlie, he’ll be using the phones, so we need to make an aerial.”
“How are we going to hear what the aerial says?” Charlie had said.
So Ethan had found a phone in an empty chalet, back when there were empty chalets, and tied it to the aerial with string.
“That’ll do it,” he said.
Their base was looking good. If Mum found the base, she would go crazy. She was always crazy these days. Drinking a lot of wine. She yelled a lot in the mornings and in the evenings; Ethan and Charlie didn’t like to be around.
Today they had a piece of plastic sheet, clear thick plastic, not like the plastic bags you would get from the supermarket, but like the ones that would cover lorries. They wer
e going to put it on top of the base, and that would keep it dry on days like this when it was raining. They found it tied around the Fence. They took a lot of stuff from the Fence. One day the crazy Fence Guy had seen them and chased them through the dunes. He was fast but not as fast as Charlie and Ethan. They had hidden under a fallen log, and he had run straight past.
“Charlie!” shouted Ethan. “You need to hold it on the corner!”
“I am holding it!”
Charlie could be a bit stupid at times. All he had to do was hold the plastic on the corner of the base, but he kept letting it go.
“My hands are cold, Ethan,” he said.
“Stop being a big girl. Once we have this on, it’ll be dry in the base.”
Ethan's hands were cold too. And wet. It was only a storm though, it would pass, and the sun would come out again after.
“Ok, hold it tight,” said Ethan. He pulled the plastic, ready to tie it across one of the trees that held the base in place. The plastic raced towards him. Charlie had let it go again.
“Charlie!” shouted Ethan, even louder. He looked over the other side of the base. Charlie was standing against the tree, not moving. He looked scared, very scared. His lip was shaking.
What was he staring at?
“Charlie?”
Ethan followed his little brother’s gaze. A figure had come out of the nearby trees and was walking towards Charlie. It was only a few feet away. It had no hair, and its stomach was hanging out like a dirty bag.
It was a zombie.
Ethan's first thought was what was it doing here? The Fence should be keeping them out.
His second was that Charlie was about to get eaten.
“Charlie, run!”
Charlie didn’t move.
Ethan stopped thinking. He ran around the base and grabbed Charlie. He pulled at this arm and Charlie fell over into the wet sand.
“Get up, get up, Charlie!” Ethan was crying now. So was Charlie, but he still didn’t move. He clawed at the sand as if he as trying to climb under the earth, trying to bury himself.
The Fall Series (Book 3): The Fence Walker Page 13