by Ian Woodhead
Gary sighed. “Yeah, whatever, just get on the floor.”
Ernest shook his head, “You can go fuck yourself. I’d rather die here and now.”
Gary shrugged, “Fair enough.” He raised his rifle.
Ernest watched the man’s eyes flicker and turned his head to see one of the men dressed in white edge closer to him, he saw the metal pole he held in his hands. He had one last chance and he took it. He sprung up and hit the astonished man hard in the chest; he staggered back and fell against the van. Ernest grabbed the man’s mask and ripped it off his head.
He watched the terrified man try to hold his breath and scramble about on the floor for the mask before one of the soldiers dragged Ernest back.
Gary slapped the young lad on the back and began to laugh. We’ve just earned another grand. He pointed his rifle at the handler who was trying to fasten his mask in place.
“Get in the back of the van!” he shouted.
The handler shook his head, “No, please Gary. Come on man, I’m okay, I promise.”
Gary shook his head, “Bollocks, you’ve been infected; now get in the van before I blow your head off.”
Ernest watched the other man in white open the rear door and helped the other sobbing man into the large cage. The young lad waved the bundle of cable ties in his face.
They both jumped when Gary’s head exploded in a spray of pink and red. The headless body fell to its knees and slumped forward to reveal the diminutive form of Dennis Flynn standing a few feet behind. He raised his shotgun and pointed it at the kid.
“Hold out your arms in front of you.” Dennis said.
“Please don’t kill me,” he sobbed.
“Ernest, would you care to use those plastic ties on our soldier friend?”
He took the bundle out of the lad’s trembling fingers and secured him, he took perverse pleasure in pulling them extra tight. Ernest turned his head to watch the other man in white tear down the road.
Dennis shook his head and tutted. He marched up to the whimpering kid and pulled the mask off. “I’ve got some friends I want you to meet.”
Ernest hurried over to Mrs Watson, thankful that they hadn’t yet tied her up; he gently lifted her off the road and slung his jacket around her trembling shoulders. “Did they hurt you?”
“No,” she whispered, “I’m just a little shaken up that’s all.”
“Hello Mavis,” said Dennis. “It’s been a while.”
“That it has.” She replied.
“I don’t suppose you know how to make hot chocolate do you?”
She shook her head, “No, I can’t stand the stuff.”
“Oh, well that’s a shame.” He dragged the boy away. “See you around.”
Mavis slung her arms around Ernest’s neck, sobbing. He held her tight and took a couple of deep ragged breaths, wondering if this fucking nightmare would ever end. She sighed deep and looked at Ernest.
“Did you see the madness in his eyes?”
He nodded, he bore very little resemblance to the quiet little guy who used to sit with his wife at the end of the bar every Saturday. “Somehow, I think meeting Dennis again would be a very bad idea.”
“We need to get out of here. I don’t think I can take much more.”
Ernest stood up and stretched, his body needed a good rest, that was for sure, he hadn’t put it through this much punishment since the old days.
“The old days,” he murmured. “Of course, how could I have forgotten that?” he gazed down at Mavis and smiled. “I think I know a way out.” His hand suddenly went to his neck, “Shit, I’ve lost the key. Never mind, the shop has a pair of bolt cutters.”
He lifted the woman up. “Are you up to a bit more walking?”
She nodded. “Wait a minute, what about the bloke they forced into the van.”
He shrugged, “What about him?”
“We can’t leave him in there, that would make us as bad as them.”
He nodded and wondered over to the doors and pulled them open. Mavis gasped. The flat eyes of a deadie stared back at them and it started to moan.
Chapter Fifteen
The kid came out from nowhere; instinct alone saved Colonel Marsham from having his face ripped off, he managed to get his arm up in front of his mask just before she flew into him. The little bitch tried to take a chunk out of his arm, luckily the mesh armour under his uniform saved him from infection.
“Don’t just stand there!” he yelled. “Get this thing off me.”
Marsham grabbed her blonde hair with his other glove and attempted to pull her off him. It was impossible to shift her; she hung on with the tenacity of a terrier.
A handler and two soldiers ran to him, they grabbed her and pulled, if anything, it made her clamp down harder. He clenched his teeth and tried to block out the numbing pain, his imagination calmly informed him that the girl’s teeth were tearing through the mesh as if it was made out of pie crust.
“Give me your knife, son.”
The nearest man passed over a double bladed eight inch dagger. It wasn’t standard issue but Marsham wasn’t going to object.
“May the lord forgive me for this heinous deed.”
He placed the tip into the little girl’s ear and rammed it in to the hilt. The girl let go of his arm and slipped to the floor.
“Sir, we have more hostiles at two o clock.”
Marsham followed Klinski’s coordinates and stared in shock at the interior of the shadowy garage. Oh lord, there were at least a dozen of them, crawling along the oil stained concrete floor like stalking cats. Marsham didn’t think any of the poor little blighters were over the age of six.
He placed a heavy lid on his screaming conscience and shot the first one three times. Klinski and Rushworth took out the rest with several carefully placed shots.
“I think I’m going to go to hell for what I’ve just done,” murmured Sergeant Rushworth.
Marsham didn’t answer; silence appeared to be the appropriate response. He walked over and closed the garage door; he had no wish to gaze at that sickening scene any longer.
Klinski looked in the window of a nearby car; he then lifted his rifle and put the side window through. Klinski reached in and pulled out a grey blanket.
“If we live through this,” said Klinski, “I swear to God that I’ll make sure that the people responsible will pay for this.”
He placed the blanket over the rumpled form at his feet and bowed his head. The other two joined him in prayer.
Those responsible? Just where would you start? The ones who dropped the canisters twelve miles off target or the bastards who created this vile weapon in the first place? He shook his head and walked back towards base, the other two were more than capable of securing the immediate area.
The chances of the shit hitting the faces of those who were ultimately accountable for this fuck up were next to zero. Unless of course the EU or the US got wind of what us naughty Brits had been cooking up.
He laughed bitterly to himself, who was he trying to kid, they’ve probably known for years, hell he’d bet his last pay cheque that other countries had a say in this.
Two suited technicians nodded to him as he passed them, Marsham couldn’t find the energy to return the greeting.
Their base was a deserted house far away from where the main action was situated, unless of course the things changed direction again. He looked back at those white suited geeks, gazing at indecipherable gobbledegook on a monitor. How would they react if he informed them that the pack was coming back? He walked into the living room and through to the kitchen. The geeks would probably shit themselves and start to panic; they were good at doing that. He groaned to himself when he spotted the head geek rushing over to him.
Doctor Marious was his usual excitable self. He got the feeling that the good doctor thought he was involved in some sort of school science project; either that or the man was bereft of normal human emotions.
“There you are,” he said. “Co
me and look at this, I think we have made a breakthrough.”
The man hurried off, automatically expecting Marsham to follow him.
“Is it a cure?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, there isn’t one,” he led him into what used to be the dining room. “Just look at that.” he announced.
Marsham had no idea what he was supposed to be looking at, all he saw was a small lump of meat twitching away in a clear glass container.
The doctor sighed “Oh, save me from the slow. Look, that piece was cut away from the sample you brought us.”
Marsham nodded. They found one of them upstairs in the bedroom, a dead boy of about fourteen or fifteen; his foot was jammed between two slats in the base of a small bed. Unfortunately, he startled the hell out of Rushworth and received a round through the head for his trouble.
He’d stared at the monster, watching in disgust as grey mush slipped across the carpet and wondered if this had been his bedroom.The walls were covered in sci-fi movie posters and shelves were packed with plastic military models, everything from battleships to a helicopter gunship. He picked up a model of a German panzer tank and marvelled at the detail, the paintwork alone was exquisite. Marsham then watched his men drag the body out of the bedroom and decided that just like them, the definitely now dead boy was a stranger to this house
“You are looking at dead flesh, Colonel Marsham.”
It twitched a couple more times; he fought off the desire to look for someone pulling strings. “But it’s moving.”
The scientist nodded. “Indeed it is, but it’s still dead, just like the rest of those things shuffling around this housing estate.”
Marsham wanted to laugh; he had to be jerking him about. “This is bullshit, once you’re dead that’s it, you lie still and rot.”
“Not anymore, it appears that the weapon has given us another stage of existence.”
“Explain.”
He shrugged, “I can’t, none of us can explain it, at least not yet, and the phenomenon defies all explanation. I don’t think even God could explain this one.”
Marsham took out a model soldier he found upstairs and placed it on the table then reached for his radio. “Start packing away your equipment, doctor. We’re evacuating.”
He took immense pleasure in watching the man’s conceited features show panic. “I’m calling in the fire teams. You’ve thirty minutes to make yourselves scarce.” He said, walking away.
Chapter sixteen
He turned the last label of the cream of mushroom soups to face the front and stood back to make sure that they were now all symmetrical.
“This is our best selling soup line you know,” said Ernest. “It is six pence cheaper then the supermarket on the end of Bridge Street. Mr. Singh wouldn’t tell me where he got the stock from but I do know that he doesn’t get it from any of our regular suppliers.”
Mavis had her mouth full of mackerel in tomato sauce. He had the insane urge to ask her if she was going to pay for that tin she’d just opened.
Being in the min-market was almost as bad as his last visit home. He saw evidence of his handiwork everywhere he looked. That sugar bag display at the front of the shop may have been his boss’s idea but it was him who had to build the bloody thing up. Twice, when that annoying little brat thought it would be hilarious to jump into it. Ernest was the poor soul who repainted the entire shop when Mr. Singh decided that meadow green was a more appealing colour than leaf green.
Ernest sighed and picked up a packet of cream crackers and placed them back on the shelf. He’d spent many long hours in this shop, working like a slave for less than minimum wage. Looking back, Ernest wondered if he’d subconsciously chosen this life of drudgery as penance to atone for his past misdemeanours.
“So where are these bolt-cutters?”
He pointed over to the door, “They should be behind the counter. That’s where I last saw them anyway.”
“For some reason I thought he’d have them for sale.”
Ernest laughed, “Mr. Singh sells most things but even he wouldn’t sell tools to help the thieves on Breakspear make their jobs more efficient.”
He walked past the baking section, stopping himself from pulling the bags of self raising flour forward and leaned over the glass counter. Ernest smiled when he saw them lying next to a claw hammer.
“Is it there?”
He nodded, “Yes, here it is, just where I thought it would be.”
Ernest skirted past the sweet display and ducked behind the counter. The hammer was there for only one reason; it was Mr. Singh’s only method of protection. The police had told him numerous times that he was risking his own life by keeping the shop open so late and having no visible alarm but he had just smiled back at them and tried to sell them the contents of the shop. Nobody had robbed him yet nor had the shop been turned over.
He heard Mavis walking towards the counter. She must have gotten bored of stuffing her face with food.
“Time to go.”
Ernest yelled out as cold fingers gripped his hair and pulled him back up, Ernest looked into the dead eyes of his former boss, and then saw its mouth opening. His hands scrambled blindly across the counter, trying to find something, anything to get this abomination off his hair.
The claw hammer seemed to mock him, the ideal weapon was just out of his reach. Ernest pulled back, screaming in agony, feeling his hair pulling out at the roots. The thing started to moan and reached across the counter with its other hand.
Through tear blurred vision, he saw something move behind Mr. Singh and he heard Mavis let out a single grunt. His former boss suddenly let him go and fell face down, cracking the counter glass when he hit it. Ernest saw the handle of a screwdriver sticking out of the back of the neck.
“Are you alright? I’m sorry, I took so long,” she said. “I couldn’t get it to come out of the plastic packet.”
He gingerly touched the top of his head and winced. “The bastard nearly turned me into a monk.”
“We should have searched the bloody place before we went shopping.” She looked into his eyes.
Ernest saw tears begin to form.
“I nearly lost you.”
“Yeah well, luckily for you, our hardware section was stocked up last week.” He picked up the bolt-cutters. “Let’s make tracks.”
They both looked towards the rear of the store when they heard the sound of smashing glass.
Mavis ran round and joined Ernest behind the counter. He saw a shadow move in the corridor that led to Mr. Singh’s living room and got down on the floor, he wrapped his hand around the hammer and gripped it tight, just in case.
She tensed up and stifled a gasp. “It’s another one.” she whispered.
Ernest thought she meant another deadie until he spotted a flash of camouflage clothing flashing between two aisles. After their last encounter, he was more than reluctant to stand up and wave. He just hoped that he’d find nothing of interest and bugger off.
The man walked past the baking section and abruptly stopped when he saw the slumped body of Mr. Singh.
“Bloody hell!” exclaimed the soldier.
The rubber grip handle gave Ernest some reassurance. It frightened the hell out of him to realise that he’d have no conscience in using it on that soldier, if he got the chance, though somehow he doubted that the soldier would allow Ernest to slam the business end of the hammer into his head. Any threatening gestures would probably be answered with half a dozen shells ripping through his body.
Hopefully, with Mr. Singh’s help, it wouldn’t come to that; the man’s body was providing excellent cover. The man prodded the body with his gun before walking away. Ernest heard him opening the drinks fridge.
“I’ve searched the building and there are no live ones here, over.”
“That’s a negative, satellite reconnaissance showed two warm images in that building, over.”
Ernest watched him open a big bag of Maltesers.
“I’m tel
ling you, there’s nobody in here. Can you not ask them to check again? Over.”
The soldier proceeded to throw the chocolate sweets at the back of the dead man’s head.
“So you want me to tell the techs to hi-jack another foreign satellite just because you are an incompetent halfwit? Look again, over and fucking out.”
“Well you can go fuck yourself control,” he muttered. “Bollocks to this, I’m out of here.”
He felt Mavis reach over and grab his hand, she squeezed tight. He nodded back; it looked like they were in the clear. The soldier dropped the bag on the floor and wandered down the last aisle. Ernest tried to relax.
Suddenly, the soldier doubled back on himself, he was laughing. “It won’t be stealing; it’ll all be getting torched anyway.”
He was heading straight for them; they both pressed their backs against the counter when his hand grabbed the top of the till. His shadow loomed over them; Ernest shut his eyes and pretended to be dead. That man above them must have seen loads of dead bodies tonight so he shouldn’t bat an eyelid at the sight of two more, besides he would be more concerned with raiding the till.
He heard the sound of the gun being cocked.
“Come on, up you get or stay down there forever, it’s your choice.”
He felt Mavis move, Ernest opened his eyes and slowly got to his feet.