by Al K. Line
"Sounds bloody miserable if you ask me," said Kyle.
"Guess I'm not explaining it well," said Mandy. "It's like a little regular village but with a big wall. But everyone has to do their share. Think about it. People have to have their rubbish collected, they have to have food, water, they want wood for heating. You need to know who is on guard duty and when, whose turn it is to go out hunting for supplies, what the fuel situation is, that kind of thing. It's amazing just how complex day to day living is when you get right down to it, so Charlie reluctantly stepped up and helped to get things organized. It runs really well. He's a bit of a softy, not barking orders and making you do things you don't want to. Really everyone pulls together to help the place run. It's safe, we never had a single infected get in the whole time I was there."
"Well, that is impressive," said Ven. "But you know what? I kind of forgot how much baggage there comes with living in one place. You never take any notice of all the daily things that need to be taken care of. It makes the bus seem even more appealing to be honest."
"Yeah, I agree. The open road, no having to think about all the daily running of a house and a village or town. Freedom," said Kyle.
"But that's not how society works, is it?" said Mandy. "If everyone did that, roamed around, didn't organize things, then we wouldn't have any of the things we have now, would we? No roads, schools, water pipes, gas, someone to collect you bins and deliver your shopping. The Web, where you can do so much, and connect to the world. Well, we did have all that, now it's different, I know, but it's a start. Just getting back to normal a little bit, starting to rebuild. Anyway, I liked it, and hopefully Al will too." She turned to look for him, and found him sitting in his favorite chair talking quietly to Bos Bos. "Guess Al is going to miss you guys a lot. You will come and visit as often as you can? Please?"
"We will try our best Mandy, honest. Right, let's go knock on the door then shall we. Um, where is it?" asked Kyle, scanning the towering barricade looking for anything that resembled an actual way in.
"You just have to shout — loud. Sometimes Bill mans the door, and he's a little bit hard of hearing, a bit doddery. He's a nice old man though, and funny."
Mandy wasn't kidding. It took a lot of shouting to get old Bill's attention, turns out he had been having a little doze on sentry duty. It took some time to convince him to let them in, but finally he managed to find his right glasses and recognized Mandy, trying to begin a conversation right there and then, shouting back and forth. Finally he agreed to open the gate and a large section of the barricade lowered slowly, coming to rest at the end of the bridge. It was a simple ramp, hooked up to a pulley system that functioned perfectly as a secure, but easily accessible, way to drive in and out.
Whatever they had been expecting when they got inside it was nothing like the reality. The place just seemed, well, normal. There was a village green, a pub, a few people milling about. There was even a street cleaner and someone using a battery powered old fashioned milk float to deliver groceries to houses. It was like the zombie apocalypse had never happened.
Ven and Kyle were totally freaked out.
"Shit, it's freaky normal, gives me the creeps," whispered Kyle to Ven, as old Bill went off to get Charlie, and announce the arrival back of Mandy and hopefully get Al accepted into the community.
"I know," she said conspiratorially. "It's all too normal by far. I don't know what I was expecting but I thought it would just be a little more, dunno, sort of full of Jeeps and men in camouflage bossing you about."
The few people they saw seemed somehow out of sorts, meek maybe, averting their eyes, not really welcoming, just kind of dead. Nobody else seemed to notice.
It didn't get better meeting the community leader. He seemed kind of slimy to Ven, to Kyle too. When Kyle shook his hand it was wet, and soft. If there was one thing Kyle was pretty sure of it was that you really shouldn't have soft hands when your life relied on hard work and dealing with infected on a regular basis. The man merely seemed ineffective. He seemed flabby and soft in a way that only those that do no exercise and are very stressed out seem to be. He was shifty, is what Kyle thought.
Something was going on.
Ven tried to put her unease away, maybe they had just spent too long on the bus. Maybe meeting the various people had made her and Kyle revert back to the social misfits they had been, and probably still were? Or maybe they were in a fucked up village where something altogether unsavory was going on, where all kinds of perverse things happened.
She shook her head, trying to clear it of the feeling. Mandy had stayed here, and she was nice. So it must be her and Kyle not fitting in. Or maybe it was the guilt? However much she tried it wouldn't quite go away.
There were pretty lengthy discussions about what had happened to Mandy, and the small group that had gathered around them listened in horror to the stories of her abduction, her treatment, the zombie and human slavers and what they did for entertainment. People stared wide-eyed. Some couldn't listen and ran off crying, others listened with focused fascination, seemingly keen to hear any news from outside the walls, however gruesome.
Ven was all too well aware that they needed to keep things brief. One wrong word from Al and they could have the whole place out for her blood. So, with tears welling and lots of hugs, goodbyes were said and promises made.
Toodles
They were about to go when a man who had not been seen until now sidled up to Charlie and whispered in his ear. Charlie seemed to pale slightly, then nodded fractionally.
"Um, hi," said Ven to the man who was now stood next to Charlie.
"Hi yourself," he said, obviously eyeing Ven approvingly.
Ven didn't like the look of this new man at all, plus she thought he somehow looked familiar, it was becoming a common occurrence of late. But she couldn't place the face, and couldn't place the time when she had seen him. They had not exactly encountered thousands of people since the infection began, but over recent months there had been a lot more chance meetings with people, both good and bad, and she simply couldn't think when she might have seen this man.
"You been here long then?" asked Ven, trying to ignore his subtle but obviously lecherous looks.
"Yeah, a while, right Charlie? How long has it been now? A few months?"
"About that, I suppose," said Charlie, seemingly oblivious to the looks the man was giving Ven.
"Well, anyway, it's time we went. Make sure you look after our friends, it's been a tough time for everyone, and Al is part of our family now. And be warned, he eats a lot," said Kyle, making the understatement of the year.
"Don't worry about that. There is plenty for everyone, and everyone works for their keep anyway. We barter for what we need, and we do pretty well here."
Goodbyes were said again, tears were shed again, and in what seemed like too short a time Ven, Kyle, Tomas and Bos Bos were back on the other side of the huge barrier.
After parking up the bus on the bridge, they got back out to go back to the wall to give a proper wave goodbye to Al and Mandy. They shouted to each other about seeing each other soon. Concerned, Al insisted that they give Bos Bos a sandwich every day and tell him that Al was thinking of him as he ate his too. But all too quickly it really was time to go. They had all held off as long as possible on the final goodbye, but there was only so long they could drag it out for. Plus the shouting was beginning to draw attention and it would only be a matter of time before the infected were upon them. Tears were shed, again, promises made. With a very heavy heart Ven and Kyle waved to Al and Mandy and turned to walk back to the bus.
There had been no point trying again to convince Al and Mandy to come with them, even though to Ven and Kyle the atmosphere within the walls seemed anything but friendly and congenial. It seemed out of whack somehow, but it was hard to know exactly why. Something there wasn't right. Maybe Al and Mandy were too blinded by love to see it? One thing was for sure, it gave off a very bad vibe within those giant walls.
> Kyle was wobbling Tomas up and down, hugged tight to his chest. The extended goodbyes had completely stressed him out.
"I don't like this, do you?" whispered Ven.
"Nope, not one bit, it's bloody freaky if you ask me. I know they have to protect themselves, it kind of just seems a little odd in there, doesn't it?"
"What do you think we should do. We can't just tell Al to come with us, can we? He wants to be with Mandy."
"I dunno, let's sleep on it, come up with a kick ass plan in the morning," smiled Kyle.
"Hmm. There's something else Kyle. I can't put my finger on it, but I know I have seen that man before."
"What man?"
"The one that came up and stood next to the leader. The one that kept undressing me with his eyes." Kyle looked at her blankly. "Seriously? You didn't notice?"
"Sorry, nope. Had other things on my mind. It's a real shame to see the big guy go. I don't think I recognized him though, maybe he—"
"Oh, fuck. Shit, we have to go back. I know who he is. I recognize him," whispered Ven, urgently. She turned to go back. Kyle grabbed her shoulder.
"Ven, we can't just storm back in. Who was he? Where did you recognize him from?"
"From the day you got captured. He was there, with the slavers. The human slavers. He was part of the negotiations. He was swapping people for infected, to get the infected so he could fight them against people and bet on them. He might have hurt Mandy for all we know. She said that she was blindfolded sometimes when attacked, what if it was him? He was certainly there though. I bet they run this place just to traffic in people. They use them for food and for fights. The leader said they barter stuff with others. I bet they barter people." Ven was getting manic, struggling to go back and grab Al and Mandy.
"Ven, calm down. We can't go back now. What do you think will happen if we blurt out something like that? We'll be mincemeat before you know it. C'mon, we have to go, think about Tomas. As I said, let's sleep on it and come up with a plan. We will get them back, okay?"
"Okay, but soon."
"Soon," agreed Kyle. His stomach churned, he could feel acid rising, and he hoped that their friends would be alright for a short period of time without them.
Two shots rang out.
Visions of their death flashed across Kyle's mind.
He went down, his thigh spurting blood, bone shards loose in his bloodstream, heading toward the heart, piercing the thigh muscle and splattering on the spotlit ground.
Tomas sprawled out in front of him, wailing, face bright red, tears streaming from his face, veins bulging and darkness descending.
Ven lay next to Kyle, a hole right through her head, the forehead a gaping wound, the side of her face smashed into the floor.
He shook himself, and turned just as Ven did. Two birds fell from the sky.
"For your supper," shouted out the slaver Ven had recognized. "In case you get hungry."
Kyle walked over and picked them up, saluting to the man, sweat beading heavily on his face even in the cool night air.
Al waved happily from the parapet, oblivious to the warning, thinking his new found friends were being helpful.
A Little Peeved
Alfred, leader of the zombie masses in the United Kingdom, realized something as he stood amid the remains of the human and zombie slavers, one foot resting on the cracked open and eagerly emptied skull of a heavily bearded zombie slaver. He realized that having control of a horde of the infected actually came with responsibility.
They were hungry.
Always hungry.
There had been nowhere near enough bodies to feed them all. The humans had been picked clean. As the twilight glinted off the broken bones of the freshly eaten, little was left. The infected had fought over the bodies, eager to fill their bellies, the scent of fresh meat overpowering as always in its intensity.
Alpha knew that they needed more, he himself wanted more of not only fresh meat, but something else too. Justice? Revenge? The simple thrill of the hunt? He wasn't so sure anymore, but he did know that the humans had to pay for what they had done to his kind, to even pay for what they had done to their own. Although he was not concerned about the treatment the human prisoners had received, he was well aware that it was another act of depravity from a so-called civilized race. Deep down he was also convinced that they had not dealt with all the slavers.
There must be more, which also meant there must be more flesh of those enslaved as well. He licked his lips greedily at the thought, and as the night grew dark and the infected grew louder, roaring their hunger to the moon, Alfred went within himself to try to open up to a new presence in the hivemind — that of a young child. He was convinced that the child and the adults would seek out others after their day. He was sure that they would be able to lead him, one way or another, to the last of the zombie slavers. A fresh source of human flesh would be a worst case scenario.
Throughout the night he was still and quiet, focusing on the pulsing fractal hivemind, seeking out the new power-to-be that had interrupted it once, now forever a part of the whole. He found it there, tiny, rough, and waiting. A small presence, but a potentially strong one, much stronger than his own if it grew the right way. So Alfred went deeper, searching for a location, a way to follow the new purple growth latched onto the heart of the hivemind. By morning he had a strong sense of the child, he could locate it not only with his inner eye, but felt a strong enough connection to be able to lead his brothers and sisters right to it. Within a certain range it seemed he could sync with it, so if they moved fast then hopefully they could stay connected and catch up.
The morning saw a writhing mass of once human flesh move as one, through muddy fields, across stony hills, then finally following a motorway until the group turned off and then turned back, the direction changing as the alpha zombie adjusted their movements when he felt a change in the communal intuition. The child was on the move again.
The horde had nothing to feast on so hunger grew more intense by the day, making control harder to maintain over the growing numbers. As they traveled more infected joined, until Alfred was unable to keep a tight rein and the band became looser, yet all headed in the same direction. Food was now palpable in the air. Delicious sensations tickled their taste buds, tongues darted out to sample the promise on the breeze.
Then it was there, so close, sweet as nectar and impossible to resist.
Alfred stood at the head of his zombie army, surveying from a distance the huge barriers that confronted them. Feet shifted impatiently behind him, unable to move forward because of his control. As he watched he saw that damn bus, again, and this time he knew there would have to be a reckoning. How could the child grow to reach its potential when it had that stupid fucking bitch and his idiot father raising him, telling him lies about himself, denying him his birthright?
Alfred was shaking with excitement as the dark swallowed up the army and its leader. The morning would see a dawn so bloody it would be as if hell itself had come to cleanse the world of the lying and foul race that called itself humanity.
He was quite looking forward to it.
They stood there, waiting. Soon enough the dawn began to brighten. Birds began to sing, then fell silent. Dark clouds promised to deliver their heavy loads, squirming under the pressure higher in the atmosphere, unable to resist for much longer.
While the darkness still enveloped him, and as the light seeped out into the world, Alfred thought deeply about the best approach. He didn't need to see over the walls to know there was fresh flesh, he could taste it even on the heavy air. He understood there would be guards, that they were not welcome. Yet, he smiled. His plan was a simple one.
He knew humanity, knew that those within would be complacent about their defenses. Such seemingly impossible barriers would leave them feeling invincible, when the truth was they were anything but. They obviously hadn't reckoned on one simple fact — he, and therefore the infected behind him, weren't stupid. Sure, the barriers wo
uld stop a group of infected gaining entry, if they were your average infected. But it would do nothing to stop him and his army, because the overlooked fact was that under his control the stupid fucking wall was as easy to climb as a gentle slope on a nice summer's day.
He shook his head in disgust. What was wrong with these people? Did they have no intelligence at all?
So, no cunning plan was needed it seemed. As the dawn awoke so did Alfred and his horde. They moved as one toward the child new to the hivemind, toward the bridge that led to the morning snack he was very much looking forward to savoring slowly.
As they began their slow march the heavens opened and he reveled in the feeling of power that crackled overhead, the thunder lifted his spirits and the lightning cleared his head. The air alive with electricity, he felt invincible and if truth be told pretty fucking cool. He knew the impression he would make on the humans that saw him — a shaven headed leader of a zombie army in a kilt, hundreds of infected under his command, all heading toward you was enough to make you wonder why God had decided that now was a good time to pack His bags — finally admitting defeat and handing the dregs of the world over to the Devil, so he could have some serious fun and playtime.
Alfred smiled wide, then with a scream that pierced the thick air he began to run.
So did the hundreds of infected behind him — moving as one under his vice-like grip on the local hivemind.