‘Well done Tyler,’ Darren said as he patted me on the back.
‘That was all me matey. All me,’ I said proudly.
Chapter 34
On the journey back, we praised Josh for a job well done. The little booby trap Darren had set hadn’t been touched. It was a tiny smudge of camo paint that he had left on the engine starter pull cord grip. Sneaky fucker.
We also had a quick peek in the bugout bags the crazy sniper had kindly put together for us. They contained practically the same items that were in the one on my back but were military grade, instead of the cheap shit I’d bought off eBay from China.
‘I saw something back there Darren. It put the shits right up me,’ I said after a while.
‘Where?’ he asked.
‘Back at the base, something was watching me. Stalking me, even,’ I informed him. ‘When they realised I knew, they bolted. They looked like animals of some kind.’
‘What type of animal?’ he enquired curiously.
‘Dunno. A cat or something,’ I said, instantly regretting the words as they came out of my mouth.
‘Ha haaaaa! Aw, did the ickle poody tats fwighten oo?’ he mocked in a childlike voice.
‘Fuck off, Darren,’ I replied as Josh turned his head away, hiding a grin. ‘All I’m saying is, we need to watch out for animals. Who knows what they’ve picked up from the dead. The virus, or whatever the fuck it is, could have jumped species.’
Darren furrowed his brow at this. ‘If that’s true Carter, we’re fucked,’ he said seriously. ‘If they’d been infected, wouldn’t they have attacked?’ he added.
‘Who knows,’ I replied. ‘The zombies are changing. If animals are affected they might be changing too.’
We spent the rest of the journey deep in thought, pondering a world that would be infinitely harder to survive in if this event was more than just a plague of mankind.
Chapter 35
It was still quite early in the afternoon as we approached the beach of our island. Suddenly Darren stood up in the boat and, with a frown, said, ‘Something’s not right Carter. The fucking Zodiac has gone!’
He was right, it had always been a little visible when we’d hidden it behind the mound, but to someone who didn’t know it was there, it would still be hard to spot. Our suspicions were confirmed when we laid eyes on the tell-tale drag marks the boat had left in sand on the beach.
Before our boat had come to a stop, Darren leapt out and stormed up to the house. I told Josh to tie the boat up and ran after Darren. The door to the house was wide open, which wasn’t a good sign either. Darren stopped to the side of the open door with his gun up, shouting for Andy and Bobby. He entered cautiously, then systematically and methodically searched and cleared every room. There was no sign of any of them. My heart sank.
I ran to the lighthouse. Throwing caution to the wind, I stormed up the circular steps two at a time with Darren close behind urging me to slow down. His urging fell on deaf ears as panic pushed me on. I later received a proper bollocking from him for my actions. Running head on into an unknown situation could end up with fatal ramifications and if I did anything so stupid again I would get ‘a kick straight up my arsehole.’
Luckily for me, as I reached the top of the stairs a soft groaning greeted me. Not so luckily for Andy, I found him lying on his side, hands tied behind his back.
‘Andy, what happened?’ I asked as I helped him sit up.
‘I haven’t got a damned clue. Why am I tied up? Where’s Bobby?’ he asked as he craned his neck to the stairs behind us.
When he received no answer, Andy flipped, straining at his bonds.
‘WHERE THE HELL IS BOBBY?’ he screamed. Darren withdrew the knife he kept in a sheath at the base of his back and cut Andy free.
‘We’ll find her Andy, just calm down and think mate. What happened?’
Andy had been on lookout duties while Bobby had gone down to the house to go to the toilet. The last thing Andy could remember was someone lurking behind him.
‘It was that weasel-faced fucker Damien. He can’t have gotten far.’ Andy looked at his watch. ‘I looked at the time 45 minutes ago, just before the fucker hit me.’ By this time Andy was starting to really lose it.
‘You,’ he pointed to Josh, who had just arrived. ‘You were in on it. Tell me where my fucking daughter is.’ He grabbed Josh by the front of his shirt and picked him up. Darren stepped in at this point to calm the situation.
‘Don’t you fucking dare, Darren. Where were you? You promised to keep her safe. And now this, all because of your murderous fucking mission to go and get weapons for your little war. This isn’t fucking Baghdad Darren. This is fucking England. We’re just ordinary people. Fucking singers and shopkeepers. Not the Special fucking Air Service. We’re not your personal fucking army to play war games with!’
Darren just stood there while Andy unleashed this tirade towards him. Even when they were nose to nose Darren didn’t react. There was no anger or any effort to defend himself against this confrontation. He just stood there, face straight and shoulders slumped but with eyes full of compassion and understanding.
‘You promised Darren,’ Andy trailed off and laid his forehead on Darren’s shoulder. ‘You fucking promised.’
Darren put one of his hands on the back of Andy’s head and said, ‘I never break a promise Andy. We’re going to get her back. Now.’
We went back to the house and examined the bedroom Damien had been locked in. The door had been unlocked, obviously by Bobby. Damien had tricked her into opening the door and subdued her somehow. He’d then made it to the lighthouse, probably while Andy had been checking the horizon for the destroyer, and made his way up and hit him from behind with some sort of object. He’d then tied Andy up, taken his weapon and forced Bobby to go with him.
‘Had he said anything to you about all this Josh?’ Darren quizzed.
‘Nothing, I promise. He did say one thing when we first arrived though. When we were locked in the coal room. He’d said if he had a chance to escape he would and then go and tell Gippa about you all. He thought he’d be promoted and get his pick of the girls. I got really angry and told him he was an idiot for wanting to go back there after what they’d done to our parents and couldn’t believe that he’d want to do that to those poor women. He never mentioned it again after that. I promise.’
Damien had been patiently waiting for a window of opportunity and had taken it, and Bobby too. Now he was going to get a big fat promotion. And a bullet in the head from Andy.
‘We can’t stay here anymore. We need to leave. Now,’ Darren said with a face of stone.
He was right. Gippa and his cronies would be launching an attack of their own on the island as soon as Damien got back to their compound.
‘What about all of the supplies?’ Andy asked.
‘We can’t take them,’ Darren said. ‘Andy, Carter, go and get anything that you don’t want to leave behind. You’ve got three minutes. No food or nonessentials. We take what we have in the boat. Hurry, time is ticking.’
Chapter 36
I didn’t think I had anything in the house of value. Everything I owned was on the boat with us in my bugout bag, so I went and helped Andy gather the things he wanted to take. I did a quick check of the bedrooms and spotted my crossbow and its bolts lying in the corner. With all the guns we now owned, my first thought was to leave it, but then decided against it. The weapon could still come in handy for ninja shit.
I found Andy in the kitchen. He was quickly fashioning a sling out of a shredded brown sheet. Dangling at the end of the sling was Bumfluff’s sawn-off shotgun. Andy threaded his head and right arm through the sling and let the gun hang. Then, in a fluid motion, he brought the gun up to his hip.
‘What do you think?’ he asked proudly.
‘Ha, I think Shotgun Andy is about ready to save his daughter,’ I replied.
‘God damn right I am,’ he said passionately as he picked up his bag and stomped out
of the house.
We met up with Darren on the way back down to the boat. He’d been refuelling it with Josh and was now jogging towards us with one of his own rucksacks in hand.
‘Where you off to?’ I asked.
‘Give me five minutes,’ he replied as he ran past.
‘Darren, we don’t have time for this. There’s no telling when they’ll get here,’ Andy shouted after him in exasperation.
He stopped, turned round and walked towards us.
‘Listen guys, they’ve been gone an hour at the most. There’s no way Gippa would mount an offensive without interrogating Damien thoroughly first, and when he finds out about what happened to Sonny he’ll be extra cautious. The little turncoat will also have told him that we’re armed and dangerous.
‘Get the boat sorted, started and ready to go. Trust me guys. Everything is going to be OK.’
As he ran off he shouted, ‘By the way Andy, I’m loving the sling!’
We sat there in the loaded boat ready to go. Darren, again, true to his word was back in five minutes.
‘What the fuck’ve you been doin?’ I asked.
‘Just some sneaky shit mate,’ was his reply.
He climbed into the boat and powered it southward along the coast towards where we’d disembarked the night before, on our mission to scope out Gippa’s HQ. But instead of continuing along the shore, Darren completed a 180 degree turn and coasted us in behind a rocky outcrop that hid us from view of anything that came out of Amble harbour.
‘Darren?’
The tell-tale look of smugness on his face told me all I needed to know. Sneaky time.
‘What the hell are we doing Darren?’ Andy asked. ‘We need to find Bobby for God’s sake!’
Darren turned to Andy and placed a hand on his knee.
‘There are things that need to be done first Andy mate. She’ll be in your arms again soon. I guarantee it.’
Andy, reluctantly, nodded his head and sat back in the boat and stared out to sea, worry etched deeply on his face.
Chapter 37
While we were waiting for the certain and imminent arrival of Gippa’s death squad, we took the time to sort out the rucksacks for Josh and Andy. Darren kept his own bugout bag. Andy and I would take the other ready-made bugout bags, left by the sniper. I handed Josh my old bugout bag and explained to him what was in it.
Once everyone had their very own bugout bag, Darren passed out the PCSCUs (personal clothing system combat uniforms) and boots. Darren had unsurprisingly guesstimated everyone’s shoe size perfectly. Waterproofs and MRE’s were handed out next, then ammo for the SA80s and Glocks, which everyone got. Darren put a couple claymores and grenades in an outer pocket of his rucksack. The bags with the spare ammo, weapons and MREs were emptied and divvied up to spread the weight and also to lessen the chance of losing the majority of a particular item, like the bag of ammo, for instance. The phrase ‘never put all your eggs in one basket’ would be applied.
Darren then gave a crash course on how to use the weapons. Josh seemed to have some experience and knew what he was doing with the rifles and side arms. He informed us he was a fully fledged army cadet, and though he hadn’t ever actually used a real gun before, he knew the correct handling, care and firing of the weapons. I could see a flicker of pride in Darren’s eye when he learned this. Darren had also been an army cadet in his early teenage years, and Josh had just knocked out another brick from the wall that he needed to get through to become one of us.
We dressed in the military clothing and painted our faces, while Darren adorned his ghillie suit. We actually looked like real soldiers, albeit three very old soldiers and one post-pubescent teen. Dad’s army sprang to mind.
Chapter 38
Around an hour passed as we sat there organising and plotting. Then out of the silence the faint sound of a bell rang in the distance. Then another. Then another. Getting a little louder each time. Then the unmistakeable chugging sound of a large engine broke the silence.
‘Here we go,’ Darren whispered.
A large fishing boat full of men, armed to the teeth and clothed in civilian hunting garb, powered towards the island. I lifted the magic scope to my eye and Darren viewed the unfolding scene through Bessy’s scope.
At the prow, a rather large, heavily muscled man, dressed all in black and sporting a black baseball cap was conducting proceedings. Pointing towards the island and urging the pilot of the boat to go faster with swoops of his huge arms. Gippa! Standing there like he owned the fucking world. I hissed this information to Darren.
‘Bessy?’ I asked.
‘No can do mate, bigger fish to fry. Can’t show our hand yet,’ he whispered. ‘Remember. Sneaky sneaky.’ He sang this in a high-pitched voice. I just shook my head at the WTF looks I got from Andy and Josh. They’d never seen Darren on a mission before and never really seen the jovial side of him. He was in his element. He lived this shit. It was where he was happiest.
Next to Gippa and looking up at him in awe was a small ferret-looking man. Stag! The title of Stag must have had something to do with his surname as there was absolutely nothing stag-like about him at all. If anything, it had been bestowed upon him as a piss take.
I could see that the sight of Stag vexed Darren immensely. His finger twitched visibly on Bessy’s trigger while he viewed the sadistic little man.
At the back of the boat were two of the biggest men I’d ever seen. They were identical twins. Sonny’s brothers. They had to be, judging by the size of them and the looks of unmitigated anger on their faces. The only thing was, they looked nothing like Sonny, who must have been spoilt and overfed as a child. His brothers had spent their childhood in the gym by the looks of things. They towered over the other men in the boat. Men who were trying their best to give the duo lots of room. Probably because the brothers wouldn’t have been in the best of moods after learning of their ‘little’ brother’s demise earlier that day.
A quick count revealed there were twenty men altogether, that included the brothers Grimm, the milk tray guy and ferret man. They barely slowed the boat as it crashed up onto the beach of the island. The men they had with them would be able to push it back in without a problem. I think the chuckle brothers could probably have done it on their own, to be honest.
Gippa ordered his men on to the beach with a click of his fingers.
Darren chortled, ‘He didn’t just click his fingers, did he? Who does he think he is? Fuckin Fonzarelli?’
We all chuckled. Again, the confidence and calm our leader exuded, saturated into us. There were twenty men a quarter of a mile away who wanted nothing better than to kill us. Slowly. And we found it amusing!
The men jumped out of the boat collectively and fanned out.
‘Amateurs!’ Darren pointed out. Military specialists would have done this in waves. The first men out would have gone to ground and provided cover for the next wave of men. This method is called bounding. They’d have done this until they’d reached the buildings and then would have stacked up at each door. Entry would have been made using flash bangs and breaching charges.
Gippa’s men just ran around like fucking headless chickens, while their fearless leader stood on the safety of the boat. Pussy.
To be fair, his soldiers had the island searched in minutes. Darren had left the doors open on the domestic buildings. I learned later that the reason for this was to hurry them along towards his sneaky plan. After the houses had been quickly searched, one of the soldiers ran down to the boat. Obviously to tell Gippa about the stores of supplies they’d found in our house.
The others spread out again. All they had left to check was the lighthouse and the boat shed. Darren had purposely left the lighthouse door slightly ajar, so this was their first port of call.
They must have been reading my mind earlier, because this time they stacked up in front of the door, but that was where the professionalism ended. The first guy kicked the door open and raced in. The thought of bagging one of
us and being rewarded handsomely, created a bit of a bottleneck as they squeezed in past each other.
‘Party time,’ Darren said. He took out a small switch and flicked it as he saw the first man in reach the pinnacle of the tall building and the last of the men filter through the door at the bottom.
Boom!
The top of the lighthouse disappeared in a ball of flame. I turned to Darren, a look of pure mischief on his face.
‘Ooo, you sneaky bastard!’ I said.
He glanced at me with his trademark devilish grin.
I looked through the binos at the lighthouse. It reminded me of a humongous birthday candle. Out of the door came Gippa’s men. I’d counted fifteen go in. Disappointingly, ten came out, albeit staggering, shell shocked and injured.
‘You only got five Darren,’ I said dejectedly.
‘Wait for it my pretty,’ he said, looking at the huge plume of smoke rising in the sky above the lighthouse.
I checked to see what Gippa was doing, expecting him to be running to the aid of his injured army. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. He and the twins were frantically pushing the boat from the beach and into the sea while Stag tried to start the engine. They were leaving their men behind!
Darren and Gippa obviously knew something I didn’t.
A rushing sound caught my attention. I looked up to the heavens and saw something. A long cylindrical object streaked through the brilliantly blue sky. It was a missile. It arced gracefully, making a beeline for the island.
That sneaky fucker had planned it all!
!!KAFUCKINGBOOM!!
The island disappeared in a ball of fire and thunder. The concussion wave squeezed the very breath from our lungs and the heat from the explosion seared our skin as we took shelter and ducked down into the boat. Once the heat had dissipated and we realised we were a safe distance from the debris that was falling, I chanced my head up above the rocky knoll which our boat hid behind.
It's Grim Up North (Book 2): The Island Page 9