by P. R. Sharp
We pass others. A mother carrying a duvet; a small girl in tow is bawling her eyes out and carrying a Kermit the Frog doll, a stringy cord of snot flaps from her nose and across her cheek. A man wearing a business suit; the right arm is missing and the pink shirt beneath is torn and bloody. Another man lying on the pavement, pools of vomit close by. Another Phase One. As we cross a side road, we hear a car approaching at speed, then watch as it clips the kerb and cork screws into the air; landing on its roof, it skids along the hard top and smashes nose first into the opposite pavement before flipping back onto its wheels, then rolls quickly in an uncontrolled reverse before ploughing through a garden wall. We crane our necks and see that the driver is a newly transformed Phase Two. He spills out of the vehicle with fresh facial injuries so severe, we can see his skull. He spots us and lurches our way. But his left leg is broken in at least two places and he falls flat onto what remains of his bloody face.
Lurch!
We lurch on.
2.7
Ace of Spades
AS THE CROW FLIES
'Dark with excessive bright.'
John Milton... Paradise Lost.
We lurch our way through some large, plush rear gardens and come out in a small cul-de-sac overlooking another, longer cul-de-sac; each backing onto the northern edge of the reserve like the tiers of a vineyard. From here, we have a clear view of the supermarket, the allotments and the hospital grounds. It's like a scene from one of Rinko's zombie movies; with the infected aimlessly wandering through the landscape, waiting for their next trigger; their next meal. We can see early morning mist, rising from the dew pond; I remember Jonny B saying that it was 'very moody'. I tell Rinko that it's not far now; but as I pan my head and see that the petrol station now sits in a heavy, toxic cloud of smoke, and that the reserve is occupied with at least one hundred or more infected, my simple plan to get home in a straight line is looking more and more like wishful thinking. We are, for now though, relatively safe and consider our choices. None are very encouraging; the only constant is that we have to get back to the flat before night fall. If we continue west, we will come out on the main road somewhere around the place where Jonny B left his car. But in our early morning travels, we have seen far too many infected on the open road and we are tired, spent, wet from the waist down and hungry; Jonny B is so out of shape he is becoming a liability. We could not afford a stand up fight in our present condition. We needed a quick route with minimal running if we are going to make it back to the compound as a trio and in one piece.
In the cul-de-sac below us, we see several cars; a couple have their doors open and more have been used to block our way out to the west, so we can't drive out of here. Even if we could, we would only get to the main road, which we know is jammed with abandoned vehicles and who knows how many infected. We tuck in beneath a large laurel brush and drink some water from my bug out bag before heading towards a narrow, fenced path that leads down between the gardens and onto a series of steps, finally dropping into the longer cul-de-sac. I’m not ashamed to admit that as we crept down the alleyway, flanked on each side with high wooden panels and the occasional tree; I was shitting it.
I peer around the corner to see that the street is occupied by a handful of infected; they are standing, not quite still. They sway gently from side to side. I told Rinko and Jonny B to head across the road like church mice and wait for me by the semi detached house opposite the steps. They do as I say.
I waited for a long time. I can see that they are willing me to join them, but... and I must confess; I was considering dumping them and making a run for it. I think at one point I had made my mind up to do just that, but I heard groaning over to my left and something in the back of my mind urged me to investigate.
I slipped over the wall to the house where the groaning was coming from. It was having an extension built. Stood in fully set cement was an infected male; most likely one of the builders, judging by his rigger boots and checked shirt. His legs were caught in mid stride, and the foot prints behind him suggested that he had walked across the brand new floor as the cement reached it final stage of hardening. His head jerked when he saw me, as if some spark in his memory had been ignited. We stood staring at each other for a couple of minutes. He raised his arms and clenched his fists, shifting his hips, trying to free his legs from their solid bond. I circled him, making sure I kept my distance. I lifted my spade over my head and forced him to turn as far as he could. It looked like he didn't understand that he could simply turn the other way to see where I was or to fathom what I was up to. I moved to his extreme left and then the penny dropped in his rancid mind. He spun around and my reaction was swift. I swing the sharp edge of my spade towards his neck, but my aim was too high. It caught him on the upper jaw. Teeth and part of his upper lip ripped away from his mouth. His eyes, a disgusting mixture of egg white and pus green, dappled with spots of red, seemed to burst into life as he frantically attempted to grab me or my spade. I took aim again, striking his lower jaw this time. I heard an obvious crack as his mandible snapped, and his body twisted back to face away from me. I brought the edge of the spade down into the soft tissue below and behind his ear, opening his jugular; the blood was black, almost dark green with worm like tendrils of red. I side stepped and again brought the spade down, this time on the sweet spot where the top of the spine meets the nape of the neck. His spinal column popped apart and his head fell forward, followed by his body weight. He came to rest at an angle of around thirty degrees, his arms swinging outwards as if he were trying to touch his toes. There was a gut wrenching click, followed by a repetitive snapping sound, similar to that of a tree limb breaking under its own weight; there followed a catastrophic failure as compression and tension took over, his knees gave way and his entire mass crumpled head first onto the extension floor with a thump.
Looking back, I know it was an unnecessary kill and wasted valuable time; but I figured I was doing him a favour. One more notch on my spade. He can thank me in hell later.
I heard Jonny B shouting my name, and stepped out of the extension to see that the infected in the street had reacted to my mercy kill and were now moving in my direction.
Decisions were made quickly. We looked in the open cars and found one that still had the keys in the ignition. It started with a roar. Jonny B threw himself onto the back seat and Rinko climbed in beside me at the wheel. I wrestled with the gear stick and kicked it into reverse. The rear bumper slammed into the legs of the infected and they fell like nine pins; I drove over them then shoved the stick into first and floored the car down a sloping driveway and into a back garden. We flattened the hedge that backed onto the reserve and came out on the open grass at the top of the field. I was in third gear as an infected splayed across the bonnet and slide under the wheels. We skidded across the rutted grass as I gunned the car for the houses that made up the western edge of the reserve. We smashed through hedges and fencing of half a dozen houses until we bounced over a small wall and crashed through a garden shed, ending up in someone’s dinning room. We escaped through the kitchen door and out onto the main road. From here, we could see the lane where Moya would take a piss. I saw a laminated flyer strapped to a lamp post which read...
WARNING
PUBLIC SAFETY NOTICE
IF YOU DISCOVER A DEAD BODY
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO
GIVE MEDICAL ASSISTANCE
DO NOT APPROACH WITHIN 5 METRES
REPORT INCIDENT IMMEDIATELY
The main road down to the supermarket resembled a combat zone. Several houses had suffered over night fire damage, and heavy, black smoke from these and the destroyed petrol station hung in the air and made the back of my throat feel as though I had been gargling petrol and burnt plastic. I could only guess that when the station blew up, it had rained fire on the nearest dwellings, and with no emergency services, the fires grew until they consumed the rank of homes. Many cars were coated in a thin layer of black particles, more evidence that the fires
had eaten their way through flammable contents unchecked for many hours. A couple of the cars; the ones closest to the petrol station, had exploded, and I wondered if these had been the bangs I had heard whilst curled up on Rinko's mattress. Charred Septix stumbled from pavement to kerb and onto the road as we exited the house we had just crashed into. We were not injured, but I think we had all had the wind knocked out of us as we slammed into a welsh dresser and fell out of the car into the demolished dinning room. We limped...
Lurched…
…into the car park. The impaled head of Moya's killer welcomed us home with a perished grin. I battered an infected square on the nose with the handle of my spade and ran past him. For one horrible moment, I thought I had lost my keys.
You know that feeling?
I pictured myself running through garden after garden, not realising that my keys had fallen from my pocket. I checked again, and found them as two infected entered the car park from the main road steps and lurched towards us. I recognised the one bringing up the rear as Mr. Cooper. Jonny B practically leapt onto the first one and buried the claw end of my hammer into his skull. When he pulled away, it made a sickening, sucking noise as the scalp tore off like the pith of an orange. The following blow to Mr. Cooper was less effective, and only knocked him onto his knees; enough time for us to get through the side gate and lock it again before Mr. Cooper flew him self towards us and snarled, his arms forcing themselves forward. I noticed that nearly all his nails were missing and the ends of his fingers were frayed. The forefinger of his right hand had no skin at all, and the exposed bone looked like it was made of plaster. He had blood on his clothing and a large triangular piece of plate glass protruded from his chin like an evil piece of facial jewellery. Rinko proved her worth next by quickly removing her sword from its scabbard and sliced off both of his arms. They fell onto our side of the palisade gate and quivered. Mr. Cooper recoiled back into the car park, looking at the place where his arms had once been and frowned. He didn't scream or make any protest or show any reaction to pain. Jonny B and I picked up an arm each and lobbed them into the car park; Mr. Cooper stopped for a moment to look at them and then staggered back onto the main road. Jonny B made another of his classic remarks and simply said, "Well, that was weird." Now; whether it was because we had just survived a car crash into the back of a house, or whether it was because I said "Sorry, Mr. Cooper", I don't know. But we all burst out laughing.
***
It was all I could think about the night before. If we get back to the flat, how will we survive? And I’m not just talking about staying alive and uninfected. People are scary enough when they are living and breathing, never mind dead and contagious. We might have to fight off desperate survivors as well as Septix. I buried my fears deep and once we were safely back in the kitchen, I insisted, no matter how irrational it may have seemed at the time, that we search the flat in case anyone, or anything, had somehow got past the dead bolts and was laying in wait. Satisfied that the flat was secure, I offer a change of clothes to each of them and change myself, and then we congregated back in the kitchen as I emptied the contents of my bug out bag onto the floor and checked what food we had.
It wasn't much.
There were the tins of beans that I had bought on the first day of the outbreak; and the onions. Plus what sausages remained but they had been sat in a warm fridge for...
My god... how long?
A couple of days?
More? I don't know. I’ve lost all track of time.
They went in the bin anyway. We had two loaves of bread that were half way to being stale. The tins that were already in the cupboard; one tin of chicken soup, one tin of oxtail. Marmite, pasta, tea, coffee, sugar; dry dog food and the powered milk from Rinko's stash. That was it. We did have plenty of water.
"Okay," I said rubbing my shoulder. "We know what we have; what do we need?"
"A big honking gun would be nice!" Jonny B said, teasing a large, hawthorn splinter from his palm.
"We need food," Rinko said.
"And weapons," Jonny B urged.
"Weapons we got," I replied.
"What? A bloody spade and a hammer?"
I lead the pair of them back down into the compound and opened the shutter to my workshop, revealing the tools of my trade.
Correction... what had once been my trade.
"What’s all this?" Rinko asked with an impressed, wide-eyed expression of optimism.
"He's a landscape gardener," Jonny B answered for me; his tone a combination of comprehension and practicality, as he eyes were immediately drawn to my chainsaw. A quick conversation made him realise that using a chainsaw to attack the zombie hordes was not the best idea, as they are heavy to wield about; you would have to get up close and personal to do any damage and the mess you would get all over your self would be unbelievable. Not to mention the noise; or the fact he was more likely to take his own leg off if he tried to wave it about like ‘Leather face’.
He argued. What a shocker.
Had he ever used one?
No.
Had he seen the amount of saw dust they produced?
Yes.
Chainsaw's don't cut as such; they rip and tear. Imagine flesh, bone and blood instead of sawdust. Get the picture?
He did.
I suggested the brush cutter instead. It had a much longer reach, seven feet in fact, and was basically a circular saw on a stick.
He liked this idea.
You wore it over your chest on a harness so you can swing it in an arc.
He liked this idea even more.
Sold... One weed whacker to the fat boy.
I removed the bright orange safety shield from the head and replaced the six inch bramble cutter with a twelve inch wood cutting disc from my universal work bench; topped it up with fuel and gave him a quick demo on how to start it up and operate it. I also found him some PPE; some old Kevlar forestry trousers, Kevlar gloves, ear defenders and Perspex face defender. He certainly looked the part, but would sweat like a pig in the summer heat.
I sharpened the edge of my spade as Rinko took her pick from the various tools hanging from the wall. She kept her sword and chose a long handle billock, which I sharpened for her. I gave her a pair of long sleeved Kevlar arm guards and another pair of forestry gloves, plus my spare forestry helmet. She looked like a little orange ninja.
I put on my skateboarding pads over my fresh dry clothes and dug out some protective goggles and three sanding masks or mouth guards, which we all adjusted to size. We looked like one, crazy restoration team.
We spent the next hour or so preparing and sharpening more weapons. I had long and short handle axes, including a short one that came with a rubber grip and leather holster, which I wore on my hip; a long crow bar, garden forks, a machete, (which Jonny B strapped to his hip.) One fully charged battery powered nail gun, spare palisade rails, a fire extinguisher, a sledge hammer, several rock and lump hammers, one pick axe with spare hickory handle, one mattock and a large collection of chisels in a leather tie-roll. I had spare petrol in red and green five gallon canisters; firelighters, fifty odd metres of barbed wire, fencing posts, fencing tools and four wheelbarrows, plus various power tools, (which were useless to our cause); and the usual accumulation of D.I.Y bargains and antiques. I took some old chains for the chainsaw and hammered them to the head of the spare pick axe handle using fencing staples, then using the nail gun, fired a dozen nine inch nails through the head of the shaft at various angles; then I sharpened the other end until it was like a pencil. (We christened the weapon 'Wallace', after William Wallace!) I had a couple of 25Kg butane bottles too. We were unsure just how we could incorporate these into our arsenal at this stage; but it would come to us.
I pulled out all the wheelbarrows and we stood in the compound with our collection of weaponry lying at our feet. Our plan was simple. Stretched out in front of us was a long line a cars; most had a boot full of groceries, and we were going to liberate as much as we
could before sunset.
***
HINT # 2:
This is the best advice I can give you, so pay attention. Get nimble. Know your surroundings. Become spatially aware. These things do not assail you in turn, waiting to attack; like dickheads in a bar fight. They come at you all at once, from all directions… like piranha. So get nimble, or get the fuck out of the way.
***
We transferred all the crap from one wheelie bin to the other, and placed all the long handled gardening tools into this; except for Wallace. We placed the bin at the foot of the kitchen steps, followed by a quick inspection of the abandoned police cruiser and pillaged the boot. There were two riot shields which we attached to the rear of the side gate with cable ties, and a couple of stab proof vests; I put one on and so did Rinko; I wanted her guarding the compound. There were also two riot helmets, but they were too big and tipped around on our heads like bowls, so we discarded them. Unfortunately, there were no melee weapons or firearms, and the interior of the cruiser was empty; it didn't even have a radio or one of those fancy police computers, just buttons for the siren and the lights. It was just a plain old yellow, blue and white police car. Jonny B and I took the roll of barbed wire and placed it by the car park entrance; I cut about fifteen feet off with a fencing tool and ran this at the top of the steps that lead up and out onto the main road as a trip wire. If any infected came at us that way, at least we would have the pleasure of seeing them topple down the steps. We attached the free end of the barbed wire to one side of the car park entrance, wrapping it several times around a large, cylindrical post that had once been a gate cushion long ago, and tied it off with a foot long twist; then lay a length right across the mouth of the car park and left the roll close to our next anchor point, essentially a metal girder sticking out of the tarmac, probably where the original gate or barrier had hung. We kept low and silent throughout. I pulled a loose brick from the car park wall and gaffer taped a couple of rags around it in a tight ball; this would come in handy later. With Rinko standing