We descended into the tunnel and she turned on the lights. We walked along the route in silence. I was nervous about what I was about to do. I had taken a rifle and two magazines of ammunition from the armoury, pretending that I was going on watch. It wouldn’t be long before it was found out what I had done.
In my rucksack I had enough fresh food and water to last me for four days and enough dried army rations for another week. After that I would have to scavenge. I also had a sleeping bag, knife, axe, matches, cooking equipment and some spare clothing.
It took us twenty minutes to walk the length of the tunnel and when we arrived at the end we found another locked door. Sophie had a set of keys and tried each one in turn, until she found the right one and opened it.
On the other side was another set of steps. We climbed them steadily, until we reached another door at the top. Again it was locked and it took several attempts before we found the right key and it creaked open.
When I stepped out, into the sunshine, I found that we had emerged through a door which was part of a folly. It overlooked a small lake in a beautiful garden. I breathed in the fresh air, glad to be free of that dank and cramped space. It felt good.
‘Thank you so much for this,’ I said. ‘You’ve been a real friend to me.’
She smiled and gave me a huge hug. I was getting more used to this now. I had never been a hugging kind of person, but you couldn’t escape it when you were in Sophie’s company. She was the exact opposite.
‘What will you say when you go back?’ I asked. ‘They will probably guess that you helped me.’
‘I’m not going back,’ she suddenly revealed.
I was taken aback. It was safe in the castle and there was food and warm beds.
‘Why not?’
‘Because somebody needs to watch your back,’ she said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t allow you to do this.’
I had already decided that I was going to do this on my own.
‘You’ve got no say in the matter,’ she replied. ‘This is my decision and mine alone. Besides, I can’t go back now. They might shoot me for helping you.’
I realised that there was nothing I could say that would change her mind. If I am completely honest I don’t think I really wanted to change it. I liked her company.
She collected a rucksack she had previously hidden in the folly and we walked out and through the gardens. They were magnificent and in stark contrast to the army of dead that surrounded the castle.
I only looked back once, as we climbed a small hill and were able to see the full magnitude of what the defenders faced. Around a thousand survivors, clinging on behind the walls of a castle from a different era, while a million dead surrounded them, baying for their blood. I knew, at the moment, who my money was on. I was glad to be out of it and we headed south, in the knowledge that we would probably never see Windsor again.
Clive Westlake
17:00 hours, Friday 29th May, Hounslow, West London
That evening, as we walked out into the park and Peter banged on the huge bass drum we had salvaged from the scene of the previous battle, I had a huge amount of doubt about what we were about to do. I knew we had to fight. I knew we had to do everything we could to survive, but part of me just wanted all of this to go away. I was leading a small group, of nothing more than kids and people who had never had a fight in their lives before, and I was expecting them to kill.
I put the thoughts to one side as soon as the first group of dead appeared. There were ten of them. We allowed them to get close and then retreated into the alley. We had prepared as much as we could. We had barricaded one end, to prevent any others from getting through. It would be enough to hold them off for a few minutes.
At various points we had made sure that gates into back yards were unlocked. We had spent a couple of hours clearing the houses and we knew we could escape through them and lock the doors behind us if we were forced to run.
I had also planned routes back to our safe house. There were four in total and the idea was to regroup there if all else failed.
We retreated back to the neck of the alleyway, as the dead bore down on us. We were like a cork in the neck of a bottle. I took the centre, with Peter and the married guy on either side. They had shown the most competence.
Behind us were two youths – a boy and a girl, both of about fourteen or fifteen. Their job was to protect us as much as possible and to take down any of the dead if we missed them. They would also take the place of anyone who fell. Behind them were the last three. It was their job to watch our backs and to provide us with spare weapons if ours were dropped or broken. We had prepared as well as we could and we were as ready as I could make us.
We stood in the neck of the alley and allowed them to force their way in. The first two went down quickly, with near perfect head shots. The others stumbled over them, slowing down due to the obstruction of the bodies, some of them falling. We took each one in turn, until we had killed them all and they were piled up in front of us.
Once we were finished we removed all the bodies from the alley and piled them on either side of it, creating a funnel. Then I sent Peter out onto the field again, banging the drum.
It didn’t take long. Before I know it there was another group bearing down on us. This time there were about twenty of them. We used the same tactic as before, drawing them in and using the narrowness of the alley to negate their numbers. In minutes it was over again.
For the next two hours we carried on, each time using live bait to attract a small group of the dead and then dispatching them without mercy. By the time we had finished off the fifth group I estimated that we had killed around a hundred and twenty.
It was a nasty business. The girl behind us puked and had to be replaced. We became worn out through the constant fighting and I decided we had to rest. I planned to take us back to the safe house and get some sleep. We could always come back the next day. There were plenty of infected left to kill, after all.
But as we were piling the corpses of the last group at the end of the alley, Peter suddenly gripped my arm.
‘Look,’ he said.
Out in the park, walking towards us, was a huge group of infected. I decided we had to get out of there but no sooner had we stepped out of the alley than we saw another group to the left, then one to the right. There were hundreds of them.
‘What are we going to do?’ asked one of the group.
‘Run?’ suggested another.
I knew that would be pointless. There were too many. Going out of the alley would be suicide.
‘There’s nowhere to run to,’ said Peter. ‘We’re cut off.’
A ripple of panic spread through the group. I knew I had to say something.
‘We stand and fight,’ I said. ‘This is no different from the last few attacks we’ve beaten off.’
‘It’s very different,’ said the married guy. ‘There’s too many of them.’
‘But when they’re in the alley it’s just the same as before,’ I said. ‘We lead them in and their numbers become useless. Remember the Spartans? So long as we keep our concentration levels up, we can beat them.’
There were more murmurs. They weren’t sure. Why should they be? There were hundreds of the dead, bearing down on us, ready to consume us or recruit us to their ranks.
‘We have no choice,’ I said. ‘We know we can do this. We just need to believe in ourselves. Stand together and fight together. Look after one another’s backs and send them all to hell.’
Those words had more effect and I pressed them home.
‘We might die here,’ said the married guy.
I looked him in the eye. He was scared, but I could see that he had already resigned himself to the fight.
‘Then if we die, let’s make sure we take a few hundred of them with us,’ I said. ‘Who’s with me?’
‘I am,’ said Peter.
‘And me,’ said a voice from behind.
‘Then let
’s kill them,’ I shouted.
There were several shouts from the others now, followed by warlike roars and cries of encouragement all round. We were outnumbered a hundred to one. The dead were pouring towards us and getting blocked at the neck of the alley again. And we stood our ground, roaring in defiance as we challenged their reign over us.
To any outsiders we might have looked like the last people on Earth, preparing to stand up and die for our way of life. Perhaps we were. We had no idea.
Then, as the first of the swarm fought their way into the alley and fell on us, I reminded out little group of one thing.
‘Aim for head. Nothing else will stop them.’
The End
Table of Contents
copyright
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
The Z Infection Page 37