by Pete Bevan
MB: “Thousands?”
JW: “Yup, we found a way of counting them by shining a torch at them and counting the ones in the beam. Then we just moved the torch round the castle, a quadrant of torch beam at a time. Then we multiplied that by the ones we had counted in the first beam, I think in the 12th year we had over fifty thousand surrounding the castle. Some were from as far away as Bristol, Birmingham and Hereford. We found out when we could get out and search their wallets when they froze. Anyway, Jim ran and told me and I went out and this guy was alive, I could see his breath as I walked up to where he lay. He was skinny as a Z and dressed head to foot in black. When I bent down his arm flopped to the side and I could see he was a Minister, you know, like a priest, with a dog collar.”
MB: “Yeah, I know what a Minister is.”
JW “Oh, okay. He was dirty, covered in gore and shit and mud and God knows what. We got him in and managed to nurse him back to health but he wasn’t well. You know. Up here. We couldn’t get him to say where he had been surviving or how he came to find us or anything. He just rambled on and started quoting the Bible whenever anyone spoke to him or he would just sit in a corner and just say, ‘wait... wait... wait...’ over and over and over in that thick Scottish drawl he had. He was always nodding and pulling his knees up to his face. Some of the others complained that he was just a waste of food as he never helped or pulled his weight or anything but we had lost enough people through the years and we weren’t murderers or anything. After a few weeks we just left him be, sitting there muttering to himself and reading the Bible. Hell, when you looked at some of the things the rest of us did to stay sane he actually looked pretty normal some days.
Spring came and soon enough the Zombies were up to their usual number and we had closed the gates. We had moved the modified artic across that had steel plates welded to the sides as an extra protection, so the Z’s couldn’t see into the castle and get all excited about us doing our thing. Life went on as normal and I pretty much forgot about the Minister. Then, one night, Isla here wakes me and we can hear the truck engine revving and someone shouting. I throw on some clothes, and grab my stick here... oh... which I should show you.”
(We hear the walking stick tap the ground and the sound of a sword being withdrawn from a scabbard, we believe this is the one found on site.)
MB: “Wow. That is a nice blade. Japanese?”
JW: “Think so, was in the castle when we moved in. Gets more use as a walking stick since my leg never set right... Anyway, what was I saying? Right... We come out of our room to see most people have thought the same as us and are running out into the courtyard, well the gates are open, and the artics been reversed back and there are Z’s streaming in. Pouring in, and... and Jesus, I looked over and there were Mary and Phil and their two kids and...”
(We hear Joe drinking.)
JW: “They were just youngsters at the beginning and they fell in love in Eastnor and had two kids. One was only a few months old and Mary has got two Z’s chomping on her arm. She’s straining to get free not even noticing the things chewing her arm because one has grabbed her baby boy. It... it just bites into him like a fucking melon and he just bursts right there in front of his Mum. His baby scream just stops as blood sprays out of his mouth. Phil is running at them all with a fucking axe like a warrior. He sees this and it’s like he just deflates, he just collapses on his knees and they’re all over him but he’s not noticing... all he can see is everything he loves just being fucking eaten in front of him.”
(There is a pause in the tape. Silence we can hear Joe and we believe, Isla sobbing.)
JW: “Oh God. Bill... Fucking Bill... He’s been my best mate for fifteen years, saved my life more times than I can remember, and he’s got a pile a fucking headless corpses around him, and he’s swinging this big fucking broadsword around like Conan the fucking barbarian, but there’s just too many. Too fucking many, and people have come out half asleep without weapons and are just getting torn to shreds. Mary and Phil’s other son is just a patch of wet blood on the ground, with this Z gnawing on his little arm, still in his favourite pyjamas. The ones that we gave him the Christmas before, you know the Power Rangers ones... Emma Thomas, lovely Emma. I probably would have married her now if she had survived, she was like my pressure valve when it all got on top of me. She couldn’t hold the door shut... she... couldn’t get the bolt across, you know? So they pulled at the door and she came with it right into a Z who tore her throat out, but she still kneed him in the balls, God bless her, she still fought them all the way, just like she said she would. You know, I think it was worse than the beginning. When I think about it now.
I look up and at the sentry post over the gate, and Paul’s there just hanging over the wall with his fucking throat cut and not a Z around him and who is stood in the middle of this fucking torrent of zombies that have been let in? The fucking Minister. THE FUCKING MINISTER, I TELL YOU! The Z’s ain’t touching him. They’re not even looking at him. They’re just streaming past him and he’s stood there in the middle with his arms in the air screaming about the book of revelation, and the end of days, and all that shit. Not one of those fucking Zombies, NOT ONE, pay him a blind bit of notice. Fifteen years and that cunt arrives. Fucking hell. He’s just stood like he’s welcoming his flock to Church and I realise what he been waiting for all this months. Just for the right amount of Z’s, just for the right opportunity to send us all to the slaughter”.
(Another long pause.)
JW: “Well, they are close to us now, so we go back inside and bolt the door. Isla and I get upstairs just as the door is smashed in and you can hear them now, outside. They’re ripping flesh and getting all excited, and I grab my rucksack from my room.”
MB: “Your rucksack?”
IW: “He always kept one packed for emergencies in case anything went wrong. It mainly had food and some medical supplies in it. We all did. It was one of Dad’s rules. Meanwhile, I’m outside with my sword waiting for them to come up the stairs.”
JW: “I just grab her and run, climb up and up through the castle. We go up through the hatch to the roof of the main hall and we just sit on the roof waiting to see if we need to drop the ladder down to anyone... but there’s no-one left. Just us. Everyone else is dead. It’s just like the beginning all over again. We’re stuck on the roof and all I can hear is the fucking preacher ranting on and on as he turns and walks out the gate, straight through all the Zombies and up the hill, singing ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. Can you believe that? ‘All things Bright and Fucking Beautiful!’ And then he’s gone, like your worst nightmare in the morning when you wake up. Just gone.”
MB: “Did you ever find out why they didn’t touch him?”
JW: “Not a clue. He was as alive as you and I.”
(Joe drinks, there is another long pause.)
JW: “Well this has been a lovely, if not emotionally fraught evening, sir, so I’m going to go to bed. We’ll talk about the rest of it tomorrow.”
MB: “Well, I’d better get back to the hotel anyway.”
JW: “What? No, I’ll have Isla make up a bed for you. I’m not sending you out in a storm like that. Not at this time of night.”
MB: “Oh, okay. Cheers.”
/KNOCK
/KNOCK
/KNOCK
JW: “Oh, Isla get that would you, hun? Who the fuck is that in this weather? If its Hamish and he’s pissed tell him to fuck off.”
(Sound of bolts being undone and old wooden door opening.)
JW: “Oh Jesus. Oh God no. No, not you!”
(Isla Screams)
(We can now hear moans, familiar to all those who lived through the War. Sound wave analysis shows that two Zombies are present in the room, a second sound we analysed proves to be dog choke chains being pulled tight and relaxing, although we are only 50% sure about this.)
Unidentified: “Joe... You never did believe that all that time I wuz waitin’ to dae the Lord’s werk. And I cannae d
ae the Lords werk with you blabbermouthing to everyone now can I?”
(The next sound is a Zombie wail, the sound of a sword being drawn from a scabbard and furniture being knocked over, screams and crashes)
/tape ends
I submit this transcript of the tape, found at DunDecapitatin’ farmhouse on the Isle of Mull, as proof to the Department of Special Circumstances of the existence of the one known as ‘The Minister’. Up to this point we only had anecdotal evidence of the existence of this man. It is now clear to me (though not actually stated on the tape), that it is the voice of The Minister we are hearing at the end. We have also not been able to locate any of the individuals heard on the tape. We did find the sword-cane mentioned, however, the farmhouse had evidence of a struggle and almost certainly a Z attack of some kind.
It is my recommendation that we assign the maximum amount of resource to apprehend a man who appears not only to be immune to the virus, but may also be a carrier of some kind. Imagine the damage that could be done, at any point, should this individual choose to target a densely populated safe zone. Therefore, I strongly urge you carry out the recommendations outlined in my report CA23/4513. Please also note that I have the sound file available of this recording available on MP3, should you wish me to send you a copy, but be aware that it makes uncomfortable listening.
In anticipation of your reply.
Kernow
Denzel adjusted the focus ring on the binoculars and stared up the A30 towards the cloud of spray in the distance. The black Land Rover moved slowly round the desolate cars and rubble. It had come down the long, straight road which ran through the spine of Cornwall. It stopped here, at the wall that ran across the peninsula. It was four miles from The Towans at Hayle, to the beach of Long Rock and the wall stretched across it. It occurred to Denzel that it would take the car a few minutes to reach The Breach as the locals called it, so he placed the binoculars on the hook inside the hut, and finished his cold pasty in peace.
“Bloody Emmets,” he muttered to himself.
The hut was a corrugated iron and steel box that sat upon The Breach, a thirty foot high wall of slag from the recently restarted tin mines. The slag was mixed with quarried rock and the general detritus that had been bulldozed up here two years ago when the Zombies first arrived from London. There were only two holes in The Breach, one here at the Hayle roundabout on the A30 and one at the other end on the A394 at Long Rock. Both were closed by a gate large enough to get a bus though, made from a steel sided truck that had a patchwork of thick steel welded to it, usually from one of wrecks found offshore that had been picked clean by the locals over time.
Eventually, long after Denzel had finished his pasty, the battered Land Rover popped and squealed to a stop by the gate, revealing itself to be more blue than black as Denzel had first thought. It was covered in a thick red/black mucus and had both headlights smashed. Long scratches ran down each side, with tufts of hairs attached, and the windscreen had a long crack on the passenger side from top to bottom. It had obviously been a top of the range model at one time but a couple of years in the Z could invalidate even the most generous warranty. Finally, as if in its rattling death throes, a cloud of steam wafted from every orifice of the vehicle with a pathetic hiss. Then the door began to shake violently as the occupant struggled to open it. There was a pause and then it rattled again, even more violently, until it flew open with a protesting squeal. Denzel, in his fifties with greying wild hair and a pudgy, ruddy reflection leant out of the hut. A tall, lean figure dressed in corduroys and a grubby pink shirt stepped, coughing, out into the drizzly day. The man looked like a banker, a banker with a capital ‘W’.
“Awhright?”
Denzel nodded, languidly at the figure bent before him. “Bit o’ car trouble mate?” he shouted.
The other doors opened and out stepped a shorter blonde woman in her early thirties (or late twenties, the ZA had a way of ageing you). She was dressed in ripped Armani jeans, and a faded Angora sweater. She quickly put on a Barbour jacket to protect her from the pernicious drizzle. She was plain looking with a vacuous expression that shouted there was very little going on inside. The next occupant was a stocky, older woman in her fifties, dressed in a faded twin set and hiking boots.
Her mousey hair was tied up in a bun, dragging it back from her face so that her long roman nose had the effect of removing what little chin she had. This meant that she appeared to look sneeringly down her nose. The fact she spent her entire life looking sneeringly down her nose only enhanced the effect. Finally, out stepped a teenage boy with a long floppy fringe and all the bearing of a wet lettuce, a wet lettuce stuffed in a soggy paper bag and thrown down the toilet.
Denzel took an instant dislike to them.
The man reached back into the car and grabbed his jacket before looking up at Denzel.
“Good morning my good man! Miserable day, eh?” he said with an accent that said ‘skinny latte cappuccino double espresso, and do you have wi-fi?’ Denzel shrugged and looked back up the road to see a few squisher fuckers shambling down the road, attracted by the noise of the Land Rover. “Yes, well. Look, we’d be ever so grateful if you could let us in. You see, we’ve had a bit of a time of it.” He smiled a thin smile at Denzel. Humility was obviously a skill acquired only since the world had ceased to see money as a commodity. The others were stretching and walking about disinterestedly.
“Where you come frahm?” shouted Denzel to the figure below. He leaned out through the hut window, resting his elbows on the wide sill, and holding his head in one hand.
“Well we’ve been holed up in the Channel Islands for the past couple of years. Since this all started really.” Denzel said nothing. “Yes well, it all got a bit intolerable. Too many people, you see, not enough land to grow food on, and I was never one for fishing, really. Then after a few months people started to get sick. So we heard about Kernow and...”
“What exactly did you hear about Kernow?” Denzel scowled, cutting the man off mid sentence. Just then there was a low moan from the distant Zombies. Everyone, including Denzel, turned and looked up the road to see a small crowd of the things shambling towards them. The were still a way off but had obviously got the scent of the travellers.
“Look, we just heard there were a few people living in a safe community down here. We heard that it was better than where we were and the few hundred people who came down this way didn’t come back, so we kind of assumed they just stayed.”
“Well I ain’t seen no-one in months,” said Denzel, flatly.
“Oh. Well, those things are getting closer, so be a good chap and open the gate,” he said, with a pleading lilt that Denzel found most satisfying.
“They are beginning to get quite close now, Julian,” said the floppy teenager, backing away behind the older woman.
“Well we got a bit of a problem then ain’t we, Julian?” sneered Denzel.
The four figures turned to look up at Denzel.
“We ain’t exaactly got too much stuff spare ‘ere ourselves, you know.” The travellers looked slightly panicked, as if they knew what was coming but didn’t want to acknowledge it. “And besides, we don’t let Emmets in.”
“Emmets?” Said Julian.
“Well this is just bloody marvellous!” sneered the older woman.
“Shut up Jocasta,” Julian barked. “Just let me deal with this.”
“Emmets?” said Julian.
“Emmets,” said Denzel.
“What’s an Emmet?”
“You, that’s what. All you lot from up country. Emmets,” said Denzel, waving his hand dismissively up the road.
“Ahh!” Julian exclaimed. “Ahh!” he pointed up at Denzel.