by John McCuaig
Looking back down, he saw something just in front of the pack. He watched as a couple of scientists struggled down the pier, each of them trying to carry a large cardboard box. It was the two that had run away from the fence earlier. Eventually they realized that whatever they were carrying was not worth risking their lives, so they dropped them and ran, but they had made their decision too late. From over to their left hand side five undead men, fishermen going by their clothes, raced out from a small building and got a good hold of their fresh victims. It was like something deep down in their past was brought to the surface, they held the white coated men down and ripped their stomachs apart, their innards got pulled out until nothing was left inside the cavity. Their prey were being quickly gutted, it was just like they used to do to the fish they caught.
“We need to get going, Colonel. Please there is no time to waste,” Mary said as she joined Page and looked down at the undead mass coming before her.
“Yes, Professor,” he said. “Thank you but I think I’ve worked that out for myself.” He pointed high up towards the ships bridge, “One of my men is in the wheelhouse now trying to get us moving, he shouldn’t be too long. But excuse me, my priority at the moment is to stop any of the undead from getting onto the boat ma’am. So if you don’t mind will you back off and leave me to deal with that?”
Mary let him be. She walked back over to Pauline and the others, and they saw that worry and fear was etched all across her face.
“We’ll go and see if we can help the guy up in the wheelhouse,” Pauline said as she too watched the undead army coming towards them. “We’ve got to do something? I can’t just stand around here waiting.”
“Thank you, my dear,” Mary said. “Do whatever you can. We can’t let it end like this. Not now, not when we’re so close to getting away.”
As Pauline led the other two up the external metal stairs towards the wheelhouse, Margot spoke up. “Hey, I didn’t know you were an expert with boats as well, sis, is this yet another one of your famous hidden talents?”
“Can’t you even shut it for a minute, Margot,” Pauline stopped and pushed her finger deep into her sister’s chest. “Please just give it a frigging rest, girl. I’m fed up with all your bloody stupid comments. You want to be treated like an adult then you’d better start acting like one.” Taking a step back, her tone dropped a few notches. “I’ve given you more than a fair bit of a leeway due to Arthur’s death, but that’s well and truly finished now. You need to stop taking your anger out on me.”
“Chill out,” Margot mumbled back. “Who’s frigging rattled your cage?”
“Hey, both of you please cut it out,” Gordon got himself right in between them. “Don’t you think there’s enough crap going on around here without you two always fighting each other? If either of you need to get your anger out on someone, then I suggest you get down on that pier.”
The two women just stared at each other; neither spoke nor gave an inch.
“Can we all just head up to the wheelhouse now?” he said as he pointed back up the stairs. “Please?” He took Pauline’s hand and headed on, for once he did not bother to wait for a reply. That would have just been a waste of time for he knew only too well he would never have gotten one anyway.
“Hello…hello” Gordon called out as they got into the large but eerily quiet wheelhouse bridge. “We’ve been sent up here to see if you need a hand.” He certainly did not want to take a trigger-happy young soldier by surprise, so he kept close to the door at first. “Hello, are you in here?” There was no answer to be had, just more silence.
“Where the hell has he gone?” Margot said as they all carefully looked around. “He’s supposed to be in here getting us moving.”
Her eyes caught sight of a doorway to their right marked Engine Room. She guessed that he must have gone down there if there was some sort of problem in getting some power. Opening up the door she soon found the missing soldier, he was there, standing right behind it.
“Shit!” she could only scream as he lumbered right towards her. His face was now a pure white and his light grey eyes were locked firmly onto her blues. A strong hand reached out and grabbed her by the throat pulling her even closer towards him. Just as its teeth prepared to bite into her face, Gordon charged across the room throwing his ample body on top of them both. The force of his charge sent all three flying across the wooden floor. It was Gordon who was the first to attempt to rise, but before he could act, he took the full force of a flailing arm from the heavyset undead soldier direct in the face. Margot’s eyes opened to see the zombie scramble on top of her, its huge hands pinning her shoulders down hard to the floor. In a mad, desperate panic, she called out to her long since dead mother for help.
The zombie soldier suddenly stopped its vicious attack, its evil mouth ceased to move. It froze; it lay motionless on top of her. Its eyes however were still locked firmly onto her sweet flesh. The second swipe removed its head completely, spinning through the air it at last took its deadly gaze away from her.
Margot was then able to see her sister through where the beasts head used to be. Pauline was standing over them with the fire axe from the wall gripped tightly in her hands, a thin line of blood dripped down from the shiny blade onto the floor at her feet. She dropped the axe and pulled the limp body away from her sibling, thus setting her free. Pulling her up from the floor the sisters shared a tender cuddle, and a little cry.
“Sorry to interrupt you,” Gordon shouted as he too got himself back up on his feet and rubbed at his aching jaw. “But he sure didn’t turn into a frigging zombie all by himself.” At once, they all turned and looked at the still open doorway, and then they heard them coming. There was a lot more than one of them coming up the stairs.
“Move it, get the hell out of here,” Gordon screamed as he headed right for the engine room door. “And get the Colonel and his men up here now!”
Pauline glanced over to the dark stairwell then grabbed her sister’s hand and headed for the way back out, she glanced over to her boyfriend just as she got to the doorway.
“Hey, don’t you dare be a hero Gordon, you just get the hell out of here too as soon as it’s shut.”
He had way too much on his mind to answer her.
***
15:45 P.M
Back on deck
Colonel Page eventually lost his patience as he watched a couple of his men trying in vain to untie the long gangplank from the railings. Racing over, he grabbed the machine gun right off the back of the nearest man and fired away a few short blasts. The heavy ropes quickly disintegrated into a fine cloud of dust and smoke, they stood and watched as the wooden planked walkway slipped away from the boat and dropped down into the bay.
“Sir, stop,” his man shouted out but he was already too late. “It’s the Sarge, he’s still down there.” He was pointing down to a solitary soldier who stood alone on the pier protecting the very entrance to the gangway. “We were going to let him know when it was ready to drop.”
Even from his height, Page could see the shock that was in his man’s eyes, the pure unadulterated shock at being left to face the deadly horde alone. Turning back around the sergeant saw the mass of the undead racing towards him; he fired off the last few rounds in his machine gun in some sort of futile attempt to stop their rapid advance. Once he had fired his last rounds he ran, he ran away from them but he had nowhere left to go except to the far end of the pier.
Jumping into the water, he tried to escape their grasp but the pack of beasts soon followed his lead, dozens of the undead poured off the edge right on top of the struggling to swim soldier. A few of the monsters got a good grip of him and the wild orgy of entangled limbs quickly disappeared under the water line. The men and women watching from the boat could barely imagine what was now happening down in the dark depths of the bay.
The mighty boat, now free from the last of its moorings, eased itself away from the pier but stayed only a couple of dozen feet from the beasts. “
Just make sure none of those damn things get on board,” Page barked his orders to the remaining soldiers that were now amassed all around him. Most were now staring at their leader in shock.
“We need to keep an eye on the whole perimeter, I don’t want even one of them somehow scrambling up on deck.” His men did not even attempt to reply; they just immediately spread out and did exactly as they were told.
It was then that he heard them; Pauline and Margot were running down from the wheelhouse shouting out his name.
“What the fuck’s going on now,” he shouted as he ran over to meet them. “And where’s the other one?” he mumbled as he noticed Gordon was not along with them.
“They’re on board,” Pauline was pointing back up to the staircase. “One of your men had turned and attacked us; there are more of them coming up from the engine room.” She grabbed the Colonel by the collar. “Gordon’s in there trying to hold the door shut by himself. Please, Colonel, you need to help him, you’ve got to get up there.”
Clicking another clip into his gun, Page barked out some fresh orders. “You two are with me,” he said to the closest men. “And you two get all of the damn civilians up to the front of the boat. Keep them all up on the top deck, in plain sight of everyone else. I don’t want anyone to go down below until we can properly secure it.”
He was clearly angry, and it was an anger aimed at himself for not ensuring that the boat was safe.
“You two wait here,” he said to Pauline as he began to scale the steep stairs. “We’ll get him out, just leave it to us.” As usual, she ignored this request; she and Margot followed him back up the stairs, keeping only a few steps behind. He heard them following but did not have the time, or the urge to argue.
“For Christ’s sake, will you hurry up,” Gordon called out as soon as he saw the soldiers entering the bridge. “I can’t hold it much longer.” A myriad of rotten, putrid hands were already pushing around the small gap in the door and were slowly forcing it back open. Gordon’s hold of the door was failing, his feet were slipping away on the highly polished wooden floor, and he knew that in any second they would burst through and be on top of him. The zombies seemed to sense that they would soon succeed too; the howls of their excitement filled the wheelhouse.
The three soldiers quickly made a semi-circle about ten feet away from the doorway and held their guns up at the ready. “When I tell you,” Page was once again barking his orders to Gordon. “Get your head down and get out of the way damn quick. We’ll be firing straight away so please Doctor, don’t make me shoot you.”
Gordon nodded and almost immediately, the Colonel gave the call.
As he pushed himself away, he felt the door fly open right behind him. Before he hit the floor the firing had already started, a battle of noise had commenced. The sounds echoed above him, the gunfire, the moans of the undead, and the thuds of the bodies hitting the wooden floor right behind and beside him. It fell into a stony silence about ten seconds later. Peering up he saw the bullet-ridden remains of five of the undead, as he gingerly rose, he saw that all of them were finally finished.
“I’d guess they were the crew, or what’s left of them,” Page said as he walked up to join Gordon. “I’ll get my guys to get rid of the bodies overboard.” He put another clip into his handgun and fired a single shot into each and every one of their heads. He wanted to make doubly sure they were really dead this time.
As he called his men over they all heard it, a low moan was coming from somewhere down the stairs. It seemed that at least one more of the undead was still down there in the engine room.
“Colonel,” Mary shouted over to him, she had now joined them and was standing in the doorway to the wheelhouse. “I need a fresh specimen; we had to leave our last one back on the train. You have to capture this one with its head still in one piece. Listen to me, I want you to bring it to me unharmed, Harry. I’m going to need it to continue with my work.”
Page let out a little snigger; he looked over to his men then back towards Mary. “Okay Professor,” he said. “But we need to get this ship moving now, if it takes too long, or it gets too dangerous to grab it, then I’ll have no option but to destroy it.”
“No, you appear to have misunderstood me,” she said as she shook her head. “You must bring it to me unharmed. That’s an order!”
The Colonel was in no mood to argue with her. “Only if I can Professor,” he said as he almost dismissed her authority. “I’m not promising you anything, I’ll not be risking anymore of my men just to get you a new pet to play with.” Before she could say anything else, he pointed over to his two men and the three of them slowly made their way down the stairs towards the engine room.
Mary was clearly fuming at his insolence, she shouted out after the Colonel and his men as they disappeared down the dark stairwell and were soon out of sight.
“Unharmed...do you hear me Colonel Page? Unharmed I say!”
***
16:15 P.M
Deep inside the HMS Clyde
The engine room itself was as bleak and grim as the outside, it was down to a last few emergency lights. The moans from the beast had for some reason now ceased and all they could hear was a gentle tapping of some type of liquid dropping down onto the floor.
With a flick of his fingers, he sent the two men off in opposite directions as he headed down the side of the tall main engine. As he reached the end he saw the main control panel, he stopped for a few seconds and inspected the wild array of dials and switches that were set upon it. Smiling, he saw why the engine would not start from up on the bridge, the main isolator had been placed in the off position. Guessing that this was normally done when docked, he took the chance to return it back to normal. As it clicked back into place, a single shot rang out behind him; one of his men had spotted the undead.
With his gun held out in front, he worked his way back around the instrument panels to where the shot had come from. Even in the darkness, he soon found his soldier who was aiming his gun towards a small office set in the far corner. On seeing his Colonel arrive, he held up one finger as he pointed towards the wooden doorway.
“It looks like he’s the ships engineer, sir,” he softly mumbled when his C.O came up alongside him. “I’m sure it’s just an old grease monkey, he’s got a pair of stained blue overalls on, and he’s covered in oil and to be honest, God knows what else. I fired as it went in there and the door swung closed behind it. It’s trapped.”
“Okay son, let’s try and take this fucker down without finishing it off, the Professor wants to study it for a while,” he said as he checked out their surroundings and soon realized that it was a dead end. “Hit its legs and arms, we need to cripple it if we can, but don’t forget this, if it does get too close then we’ll kill it for good. Do you understand me soldier? Don’t you go taking any fucking chances with this thing.” With a couple of small nods, the soldier replied. Just then the last soldier also turned up, he shook his head to signal that he had found nothing else on his search. “It’s all clear, sir. It seems that this is the only one left.”
Page then gave them his orders. “You’ll stay here and watch our backs, just in case you’ve missed one of them,” he said to the first man as he pointed around at their near black surroundings. “I sure as hell don’t want any more surprises sneaking up on us.”
“And you’re with me, corporal,” he said to the other one. “Let’s get it done.” Without hesitation, they moved slowly and quietly towards the small office doorway, only stopping when they reached it.
“You open it when I give you the nod,” he whispered to the still fairly young soldier, his gun then aimed down towards the simple door handle. “I’ll go in first and put it down.”
As soon as he got the signal, the soldier pulled the door wide open. However, Page did not get the chance to make any move inside; the undead sailor was already waiting on the other side, ready to rush out.
For someone so old and injured, it sure moved as hell m
oved fast, the Colonel only managed to get a couple of shots off, but that was never going to be enough to stop its hunger fuelled charge. Both its stained hands clamped onto Page and sent him flying backwards until he was pushed tight up against the cold steel wall. As its mouth came over to taste his flesh, Page’s forearm came around, smashing hard into the side of its putrid jaw. As it slackened its grip for just a second, the Colonel took his chance, his leg came around with such force that the beast was pushed away from him and it rolled across the floor, slamming into the hull.
“Now lad, shoot it,” he screamed to the nearest soldier. “But don’t kill the bloody thing.”
Blasting away with his machine gun the soldier emptied most of his magazine into its legs and arms as he moved towards it, almost blowing the limbs right away from its body in the process. The zombie screamed out, not in pain for it felt none, but in a deep anguish as it tried, and failed to make a move towards them.
All it could do was twitch its torso and inch itself very slowly across the shiny floor. Its jaws snapping away in a feeble attempt to feed.
“Well done, son,” Page said to the soldier as he joined him in examining the now ripped up remains of the undead man. “Go and find me some rope, we need to get this damn thing up top.” As his man went off searching, Page pulled up a crate, sat down and spent a few moments just watching the beast writhe along on the floor.
Looking into its eyes, all he could see was rage and anger, and it looked right back at him.
***
16:50 P.M
Up on deck
The arrival of the Colonel and his prize back up top caused more than a fair bit of commotion. There were gasps and shouts from the scientists as the blood soaked zombie was dragged by the rope out of the wheelhouse, then roughly down the metal staircase until it eventually clumsily thudded down onto the wooden deck.
“Well there you go Professor,” Page said as he casually threw the free end of rope down at her feet. “Just as you requested, you now have one still moving zombie.” He pointed down to the trussed up, and gagged beast that was behind him.