“Got any going spare?” asked Bruce.
He knew his mates would always have some going for him, but he never liked to make them feel he treated them as slaves, or that he was a bludger, which in many ways he was.
“Of course mate, sit down,” said Dylan.
With bacon in the belly and the sun shining down, the day was quickly firing up, one more day of fun before it was back to the grindstone. By ten o’clock the three had done little to move from their comfortable position. They all knew that the crowds would be flocking in anytime now, but none could be bothered to put any effort in.
“You know we have a battle at eleven, yeh?” said Connor.
“Yeh, suppose it’s about time to armour up,” said Bruce.
“Our numbers are a bit low today aren’t they?” asked Dylan.
“A few people were sick on Friday and cancelled, a couple of others went home last night as they were rough,” said Connor.
“Great, the organiser won’t be happy, I’d be amazed if we can field more than twenty combatants, not exactly an epic battle,” said Bruce.
“Fuck ‘em, the public suck anyway,” said Dylan.
“Well then you should’ve joined the SCA!” said Bruce.
Dylan didn’t respond, just huffed at the response. The group was due to put on a battle re-enactment display shortly, and they were yet to even put away their modern cooker. Finally the three got up and went to work.
Bruce went about fitting his armour, a tricky job without help. He tied up the arming jacket that he was still wearing and sat down with the bag of armour. He started with the cuisses, poleyns and greaves, the leg armour. He then threw over his mail shirt, wriggling to get it to tumble over his body. It was another half an hour before he finally had attached the mail gorget, plate arms and breastplate. It was now just ten minutes until the display and the group was finally approaching a ready state, a lazy display of organisation.
“Come on you bogan bastard!” shouted Connor.
Bruce stood up in a relaxed lazy fashion, unaffected by his friend’s attempts to hurry him along, and happy to continue at the pace he intended. He pulled his gauntlets on and took his poleaxe in hand, but before he began to make a move, Bruce noticed a ruckus forming a hundred yards away where the public had been wandering around the local fair. Taking a few steps closer he could hear the cries of a woman asking for a doctor. He leapt forwards, breaking away from his usual casual and lazy state, for one showing determination.
Breaking through the crowd of people Bruce could see the cause of the problem. A boy was lying on the floor, his father crouched over him. The lad of about eight years old was very pale and sickly, barely able to breathe.
“Are you a doctor?” the mother asked.
“No, but I can help,” said Bruce.
He knelt down beside the boy. The young lad was perspiring heavily, clearly in a feverish state. His breathing had slowed to a feint gasp.
“Have you called an ambulance?” Bruce asked.
“Yes, but it won’t be here for another five minutes, please help him!” the mother said.
The boy coughed harshly and blood splurged out from his mouth.
“What’s his name?” asked Bruce.
“John,” the father responded.
“Ok John, can you hear me?” asked Bruce.
The boy let out his final breath. The audience around him gasped in horror as they saw the boy lose all signs of life.
“He’s stopped breathing, you give mouth to mouth, I’ll give the compressions,” said Bruce to the boy’s father.
The man, in utter panic, began breathing air into his son’s mouth. Bruce began the compressions. The two men cycled the same action again. As Bruce was pushing down on the boy’s heart, he jolted and spluttered.
“Out the way!” said Bruce.
He laid his ear down close to the boy’s head to listen for breathing. He listened intently whilst the crowd was silent around him. The boy’s body jerked up and he bit into Bruce’s collar. He leapt to his feet, the boy still clinging on with his jaw.
“What the fuck!” Bruce shouted.
The boy’s teeth stood no chance of penetrating Bruce’s mail collar, a fact he would truly learn to appreciate before the day was out. He circled around, trying to pull the crazy boy from him.
“Get this bloody bastard off me!” Bruce cried.
The boy’s father took hold of the boy as his mother was shrieking in amazement and horror. The boy released his hold on Bruce, who was thrown to the ground from the sudden balance change. The crazy boy simply did the same to his father as he had attempted with Bruce. This time the child’s jaws were rather more successful, driving hard into the man’s neck, piercing his windpipe. The man collapsed to the ground immediately, his hands cupping the gaping wound, but it was too late. A quickly expanding pool of blood was gathering from around his writhing body.
“Wayne!” shouted the mother.
She ran to his side, but he couldn’t respond with anything more than a deathly stare as he gasped for air. She shot a look of disgust at her son, no longer showing any signs of concern for him.
“What have you done?” she cried.
The crowd could do nothing but stare in utter amazement at the situation. The boy staggered towards his parents, blood pouring from his mouth.
“Stay away from us!” she shouted.
He didn’t stop. The mother put her right arm out to stop the boy, but he simply took hold and bit into the exposed flesh. The mother reeled in pain. Before Bruce could respond, the boy had driven his teeth in to the woman’s neck, the same way he had her husband. Seeing the dire situation before him, Bruce slipped his steel gauntlets back on, full well appreciating what good his armour had already done him.
As the woman tumbled to the ground, Bruce grabbed the boy by his shoulders and threw him aside, away from the woman. He looked down at the bleeding mother and realised she was done for. Bruce looked back at the boy he’d thrown to the ground, the frenzied lad was already back on his feet and stumbling towards Bruce. Now without hesitation, he stood and drove his plate metal gauntlet in to the youngster’s face. The sharp edged metal finger sections of the glove drove through the boy’s soft skulled head, imbedding a couple of inches in. The result was nothing short of a car crash effect. Putting his other hand onto the boy’s lifeless body, he drew the blood soaked gauntlet from his face.
Without warning, Bruce was struck across the head with a baseball bat. One of the nearby stall holders had rushed to the scene to see three dead bodies and a blood soaked man, and rushed to the obvious conclusion.
Bruce came back to consciousness ten minutes later. He was lying flat out, his two friends looking down on him. Water dripped from his face, an attempt by his friends to wake him up. Blood dripped from his head from the strike he’d taken. Looking around, he was in the toilet block that he’d been in earlier in the morning.
“Hey mate, he’s back!” said Connor.
“Bruce, Bruce! Come on, mate,” said Dylan.
Bruce turned and got to his feet with help from his two friends, still feeling a little unsteady, he rested back against a sink.
“What the fuck is going on?” asked Bruce.
“You tell us,mate,” said Dylan.
Looking around, Bruce could see that the door to the toilet room was shut and that two other people were in there with the three friends. One was another re-enactor, Christian, a fairly new member to the group. The other man was a member of the public.
“What are we doing in here?” asked Bruce.
“When you were knocked out everything went to shit,” said Connor.
“That couple came back to life and started biting people,” said Dylan.
“What do you mean came back to life?” asked Bruce.
“Exactly that, mate. They bled out, and then a minute later were on their feet,” said Dylan.
Bruce shook his head in astonishment, lost for words. He turned around to look at hims
elf in the mirror, now more a mess than he was during his last visit.
“What do we do now?” asked Connor.
“Well what’s happening out there?” asked Bruce.
“Those people that died and came back, they’re wandering around and biting more people, that’s why we are held up here,” said Dylan.
Bruce stumbled over to a small high window to look out at the carnage. A few dozen of these walking dead were clearly visible, staggering around before him. A line of cars from the entrance to the place was banked up. Several had crashed into one another at the gates, blocking the rest. The walking dead were attacking the people stuck in cars. Some people were getting out and making a run for it.
“Holy dooley!” said Bruce.
“What are they?” asked Connor.
“Look like zombies to me, mate,” said Dylan.
“What?” asked Bruce.
“They come back from the dead and bite people, who then become like them. If something acts and looks like a zombie, I call it one,” said Dylan.
“Fair dinkum,” said Connor.
“Pig’s arse!” said Bruce.
“Seems like it, mate,” said Dylan.
“Christ, this is bollocks,” said Bruce.
“So we’re gonna get out of here?” said Connor.
“Bet your arse we are,” said Bruce.
He looked around to the car park, his beloved UTE sat peacefully and untouched.
“We need our weapons, we’ll cark it without them,” said Bruce.
“Yeh,” said Connor.
“So, these crazy fuckers are slower than us. We’ll make a run for the tents, grab the weapons, then to the UTE and away,” said Bruce.
“How do we get out? The exit is fucked,” said Connor.
“Don’t you worry about that mate, we’ll find a way,” said Bruce.
“Right,” said Connor.
“Now, who’s this?” said Bruce, looking at the only man not suitably attired in armour.
The man looked up, scared and in shock. He was in his early twenties and casually dressed.
“Come on man, speak up,” said Bruce.
“Lee,” the man reservedly replied.
“Right, Lee. You can either grow some balls, and follow us, or have them removed by Zombies. Which is it going to be?” asked Bruce.
“Uhhh, I’ll, uhh, go with you I guess,” said Lee.
Bruce slapped the young man, though forgetting he was still wearing steel gauntlets, the hit landed harder than he anticipated, throwing the man off his feet.
“Harden the fuck up, or those things will bleed you dryer than a dead dingo’s donger,” said Bruce.
Connor and Dylan helped the man back to his feet, the shock had at least woken him up.
“It’s alright laddie, he’s got your best interests at heart,” said Dylan.
“Christian, you with us?” said Bruce.
“Sure thing, boss,” said Christian.
Bruce wasn’t anyone’s boss, but he’d shown some serious initiative so far, whilst most others were panicking or crying like girls. Christian full well knew the best option when he saw it.
“Good, right, how do we kill these fuckers?” asked Bruce.
“You punching its face in seemed to work well,” said Dylan.
“Yeh, like in Shaun of the Dead mate, hit them on the head,” said Connor.
“Alright, we need our weapons,” said Bruce.
“But they’re blunt mate,” said Connor.
“And? I think a blunt metal poleaxe will hit rather harder than Shaun’s cricket bat,” said Bruce.
“Too right!” said Dylan.
Bruce looked back out through the window. There were now a dozen zombies shambling between the toilet block and tents. The disease had spread at an incredible rate.
Simply put, too many people were unable to accept the possibility of a zombie apocalypse, and were too shocked to fight back. Many of the others were subdued when the bingle with the speeding ambulance at the entrance blocked most people in.
“Okay, so you ready?” asked Bruce.
The men all nodded. Dylan and Connor were raring to go, Christian uneasy, but comforted by his leader. Lee was still cowering like a little girl. He would clearly follow wherever the survivors went, but Bruce knew he served no useful purpose, except perhaps to provide some diversion.
“Connor, get the door, all of you, follow me, only fight if you have to and keep up!” said Bruce.
He pulled the door open. The heavy clang of the metal door alerted several nearby beasts to their presence, turning to confront the new enemies. The group ran out from the toilets, Bruce at the lead. He zigzagged between the first few. The slow speed of the creatures allowed the men to pass comfortably between them.
Some people would have you believe that armour makes you sluggish and clumsy. The reality is that decent armour weighs a lot less than what a modern soldier carries on his back alone. Well fitted armour moves in near harmony with the body. The weight is divided quite evenly across the body. Armour of course slows your movement by shear weight, and the under armour insulates you heavily. You will indeed sweat more and tire more quickly, but the effects are not near as prominent as most people think. It’s not wearing armour that truly tires you, it’s fighting which tires you more quickly than many realise, whether you are wearing a full harness or not.
Now just ten feet from his tent, Bruce couldn’t avoid walking within grabbing distance of a zombie. Without stopping, he smashed it with a right hook as he ran past. The beast spun around from the almighty force, crashing over a canvas tent before slumping ungraciously to the ground.
The group reached Bruce’s tent. He kept a wooden rack for weapons outside his tent for himself and his friends to make use of. He was keen to practice from historical fighting manuals when he could. He reached for his poleaxe and turned to the others. The weapon had an aluminium head on it, making for a safer weapon when using high contact levels against fellow re-enactors. It only made the weapon safer for armoured opponents, not the rest of the population.
The poleaxe was a pole weapon as tall as a man, with a metal axe or hammer head one side, and a spike the other, as well as a top spike. This weapon could more accurately be described as a pole hammer, but the term poleaxe had come in to such regular usage that few people ever differentiated between them anymore.
Connor snatched up his all metal flanged mace, a brutally simple and effective tool. Dylan took up his bardiche, also blunt, but it was a hefty lump of metal. Bruce gave a bill to Christian and Lee. The bill, or billhook, was essentially a long hafted weapon with big steel blade at one end, with spikes and weight in its favour. Christian was capable enough but Lee looked like a complete arse, an incapable and a weak excuse for a man.
Bruce looked around in all directions to evaluate the new situation. Their speedy movement had alerted dozens of creatures to their presence. Clearly, the majority of the crowd that had gathered to watch their display had succumbed to the beasts, at least those that could not flee in time.
The event organiser and his wife, now zombies, were closest. Dylan took note of this and moved towards them with his bardiche. The weapon resembled a long shafted axe but with an elongated semi-circular blade running the last quarter of the shaft. The original weapon would have provided immense cutting ability, but Dylan’s re-enactment one was blunt and simply a big cudgel when used in anger.
Dylan swung the weapon around with a shorthanded grip, making full use of the pendulum of steel he wielded. The blunt blade barely noticed the barrier in its path that was the organiser’s jaw. The mouth tore open, splitting partly from the upper skull. The zombie’s body barrelled over to the ground, though was not dead. It writhed on the floor, not in agony, but desperation. It was not concerned about death, only the endless devotion to drawing more blood.
“Dylan!” shouted Connor.
The second zombie, previously the organiser’s wife, was within feet of Dylan, staggering eagerly
forwards. Dylan had stopped out of curiosity to see the result of his work, forgetting the world around him. Connor leapt forward and hammered the mace down on to the woman’s head. The flanges of the mace imbedded deeply into her brain, so far that the shaft now touched the skull. The zombie dropped to its knees, but the weapon was still firmly rooted in the caved in noggin.
“Corker of a shot!” shouted Bruce.
He could barely conceal his excitement. Just a few hours before he almost felt bad about urinating in the presence of the woman, now he was not even bothered by her brutal death. A warmth overcame our hero and rid him of the few inhibitions he had left, now he had a real purpose in life.
He looked around to see Lee, quivering in fear and disgust. The coward dropped his weapon and chundered next to Bruce’s tent. Bruce’s moment of awesomeness was over, time to put the game face back on. He strode over to the pathetic man, fully aware of the evil that was bearing down on the group.
“You pathetic, lazy, idle, fuck muppet! You’re about as useful as a one-legged man in an arse kicking contest!” said Bruce.
The man looked up at him, gaining some semblance of a man’s constitution.
“Bruce?” asked Connor.
“What?” asked Bruce.
“We’ve got a shit storm bearing down on us, mate!” said Connor.
“Lee, you can either come or stay, I don’t give a fuck, but God help you if you slow us down!”
He looked to survey the situation for the last time before they moved. It was truly incredible how quickly the infection had spread. For a moment Bruce wondered how it had even got to this place. Knowing that it was a public re-enactment, where people both locals and outsiders all gathered in one place, he’d already answered his own query.
“To the car!” said Bruce.
The group took to a jogging pace. It was about four hundred yards to the car, they couldn’t risk excessively tiring themselves, nor did the enemy’s slow speed necessitate them going any faster. Four zombies were mingling in front of Bruce’s car up ahead. They had to be dealt with.
“Dylan, go left, Connor right, Christian, you’re with me, Lee, stay the fuck out the way!” said Bruce.
Bruce approached quickly. He struck with the bottom of the shaft, knocking the creature back onto the ground. As it strained to get back up, he stamped on its face, slamming its head back down to the dirt. Finally Bruce swung the hammer head of the weapon down onto the creature’s face. The metal head landed firmly between its eyes and smashed through the skull.
Zombie Dawn: Outbreak Page 3