The Undead (Book 23): The Fort

by Haywood, R. R.

  ‘Trouble ahead… Peter’s voice in the radio. Mary’s face focussing hard as the small fleet of vehicles starts to slow.

  ‘Seen that?’ Mary asks, pointing to the other side of the road as they pass an infected woman crawling along, her legs mangled and crushed, her face wild with frenzied hunger.

  ‘Go out wide,’ Lilly urges.

  ‘This isn’t good,’ Peter says from ahead. ‘We might be needing to rethink…’

  ‘I can’t see,’ Lilly says, leaning over as Mary starts steering out, opening the view beyond Peter’s van to a crowd of infected charging ahead down the road. Running fast. Lots of them too. Stretching the width of the wide road in dense lines all going forward. The snarls and screeches heard through the open windows of the van.

  ‘Stop here,’ Peter orders. ‘We’ll turn around and find somewhere else…’

  ‘Is there anywhere else?’ Lilly asks Mary. Her eyes scanning the infected, trying to see what they’re chasing.

  ‘Up the coast maybe. Not close though…’ Mary says.

  ‘What are they chasing? Peter, it’s Lilly…can you see what they’re chasing?’

  ‘Not from here,’ Peter replies, his lips pursed. He felt the same rush as Lilly at seeing the lorry park filled and ready. But there’s too many infected. The risk is too high. ‘We’ll turn around…’

  ‘You seeing that, Peter?’ Willie asks, shooting his arm out ahead. ‘The fence…see it?’

  ‘The fence,’ Mary says quickly in the next van back from Peter. ‘Down the road…people running…they’re inside that fence…’

  Lilly lifts up, trying to see then spots the figures ahead of the horde, instantly recognising them as people from the scared way they run into a compound and start dragging the gates closed. Big and high with sharp metal tops and coiled with razor wire. More people seen beyond them running from a building.

  ‘Peter,’ Willie says, glancing from the infected to Peter with a deeply worried look.

  ‘Too many,’ Peter says, shaking his head. ‘There’s too many…’

  ‘Jesus,’ Mary says. ‘Will the gates hold them back?’

  ‘Not a chance,’ Lilly says. ‘They’ll body pile and go over in seconds…’

  ‘Are you joking now? Do they do that?’ Mary asks, snapping her head over as Lilly drops out of the van and starts running. ‘BLONDIE! YOU DAFT BITCH…’

  ‘We can’t just leave them, Peter,’ Willie says, his face consumed with angst. ‘They’ll be over that fence in seconds…what the bloody hell? Is that Miss Lilly?’

  ‘Where?’ Peter asks, turning to see Lilly running past his van. ‘LILLY! GET BACK…Ah shit, she’s fecking mad. Out with you…’ he shouts, spilling from his van to charge after her. ‘LILLY!’

  Lilly runs hard, seeing the infected will hit the fence any second. Seeing the people still trying to get the gates closed. Seeing they will die within minutes. ‘HEY…HEY!’ she shouts out, trying to make the infected see her but the noise is too high, the distance too far so she points her rifle to the sky and plucks the trigger, the sharp crack sounding over all else.

  ‘BLONDIE!’ Mary yells, running after her with her Lee Enfield rifle in her hands. Peter and the rest all spilling from their vans.

  Lilly fires again. Screaming out as the last few stragglers in the horde turn to look. A glance back. Eyes red. Mouths open. A message spreading and more turn.

  ‘SEE ME,’ Lilly roars, coming to a stop to bring her rifle up. ‘See me…’ she says the words again and starts firing, sending shots into legs and bodies, blowing them back and making them spin and drop.

  ‘Ye bloody crazy,’ Mary yells, reaching her side to aim and fire. Her rifle booming louder. The shots bigger and taking the infected off their feet.

  The rest of the horde turn with a wild screech and start charging back towards Mary and Lilly. A solid wall of things that were once people moving fast with pure violence etched on their faces.

  ‘Do you know what Howie will do to me if you get hurt,’ Peter yells, reaching Lilly’s side as he lifts his rifle.

  ‘Howie isn’t here,’ Lilly shouts, changing magazine as the line forms. Nearly thirty men firing all manner of guns and the air fills with noise and heat. With booms and cracks. Lilly slings her rifle and pulls a grenade from her pocket. Her face hard. The woman that took the fort back. The same woman that rolled the grenades into the room. She pulls the pin and lobs it overhead, sending it high and long so it drops deep and rolls before exploding with a deep satisfying bang sending a spray of blood and gore flying up.

  Still the horde run. Still they charge and still the line fires. Changing magazines quickly. Pouring bullets into bodies but the horde close the distance fast. Heedless to pain. Heedless to anything.

  ‘Come on,’ Lilly fires into them. Mary the same. Her ten shot magazine running out faster. The gap closing. The darkness coming but Lilly has been here before. She’s seen this. She’s tasted it. Peter too. Willie, Elvis, Patrick and Tyson. They were all there on the shore road that day. Mary wasn’t there. Mary hasn’t seen this, and she glances to Lilly, seeing the change in her. Fear inside her gut. Fear at what’s coming and then it’s too late to run, too late to re-load and as Lilly slings her weapons and draws her knife, so Peter and the others that did it before do the same and down they go, lowering into stance, readying for the impact. Mary does it too. Scared. Terrified and with adrenalin flooding inside her. ‘SEE ME…’ Lilly screams the words, the veins in her neck and head pushing out and she can’t wait. She can’t hold back. ‘INTO THEM…’

  They charge. The two lines coming together. A whump as they hit. A deep impact of bodies into bodies and the blades go in. Deep and stabbing. Peter headbutting one down before stamping on the face. Willie punching out hard and fast, his knife puckering flesh with each blow. Elvis beside him. Mary with bunched fists, smashing them down and away. Lilly leaping high into a big male, wrapping her legs about his waist as she stabs into his eye and steps off when he falls, going in again to open a stomach. Blood everywhere. Gore and heat. Mary stabbing and stabbing. Men grunting. Shouts and cries. Pistols drawn to fire close range. The glory of battle upon them and they get bit and scratched with blood and fluids going into wounds and mouths, but they do not turn and so they fight on. Fast. Brutal. Vicious and all of them fighting to stay with Lilly. For her energy. For her will power to do this now.

  Then the gaps start to show. The horde not so thick now. ‘INTO THEM…’ Lilly shouts out, urging them on as the ground becomes thick with bodies and then it’s done with Lilly kicking into the legs of the last one, taking it down before grabbing the hair and sticking her knife into the throat and pushing the body away. Her chest heaving. Her face so alive. Blood on her arms and down her front. Thick spatters across her face and she turns to grin at the men and right there, Mary understands why her Uncle Peter said they should go and live outside a fort run by a posh woman called Lilly.

  ‘Ye crazy bloody girl!’ Peter says, rushing in to hug Lilly. They all do. Closing in with shouts and yells, patting each other on the back and clustering about Lilly. The energy still flowing.

  ‘What did I tell you,’ Willie shouts out at the others, his head held high as he stands proudly next to Lilly. ‘Eh? What did we say? We said the wee girl fights. We said that…now you’ve bloody seen it…’

  Lilly grins. Her chest still rising and falling. Sweat pouring down. Men all around her and she looks over to Mary staring at her. Blue eyes meeting green. A smile between them.

  ‘And Mary!’ Willie shouts at his sister. ‘Damn you’re a pain in the arse but you can bloody fight…’

  ‘Finally, ye ginger prick…’ Mary fires back. ‘I can shoot better and I can bloody punch harder…don’t you all groan at me now ye sexist twats…’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Day Twenty Three

  ‘Hi! I’m Pammie…follow me …Yeah and like, so those kids were awful. They had machine guns and then me and Lilly killed them all… This is the infi
rmary and Lisa who is like our top doctor…’

  ‘Hi, welcome to North Korea,’ Lisa says. ‘Be ready to be worked to death, or starved if you don’t, or left to burn in the sun. But hey, go Lilly! Seriously, don’t say a word against her or Lenski…now fuck off, you all look fine.’

  Out of the infirmary and across to the food rooms. ‘THIS. IS. A. NEW. GROUP…’

  ‘I speak English,’ Sunnie says. ‘I. SPEAK. ENGLISH…’

  ‘This is your patch,’ Pamela says, coming to a stop. ‘And apparently the Muslims like totally started the whole zombie thing so don’t touch them. Bye!’

  ‘What did you get for me?’ Tommy asks, plucking bottles and packets out of her underwear while Pamela tries leaning forward to kiss him. ‘Get a toothbrush, your breath stinks, go on now. Off you go. Good girl…’

  ‘Hi, I’m Pammie…so yeah, total orgies and like everyone was fucking until we killed them all with grenades…’

  ‘I’m Doctor Lisa Franklin. Welcome to Lilly’s concentration camp. Work or die but don’t speak out. You look fine. Fuck off.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Sunnie says firmly, pointing at Pamela. ‘I speak English…’

  ‘NEW. PEOPLE,’ Pamela shouts slowly.

  ‘Unbelievable,’ Sunnie mutters, sorting out the food while Pamela fills her underwear.

  ‘Oh you look so wretched,’ Colin says a few minutes later. ‘Let’s get you all settled eh? Anyway, this is my notice board…I’m just putting a list of the section heads on it…’

  ‘This is your section…you might get a tent later. Lenski is sorting them out I think, but then you’re not Muslims and they started the infection and killed everyone, but they get the nice tents. Bye!’

  ‘Good girl!’ Tommy says, plucking a bottle of gin from her knickers while weaving side to side to avoid her puckered mouth. ‘Go on now, get back at it…and do me a favour, bring the next lot to me before you take ‘em to the food rooms. Good girl…we’ll have a cuddle later eh?’

  ‘Hi, I’m Pammie. We kill children with grenades but not the Muslims because they started it…this is Lisa.’

  ‘Welcome to hell. Lilly will make you work until you are dead. Go away.’

  ‘And this is Tommy…’ Pamela says, showing them to the big tent and grinning Tommy waiting for them.

  ‘Watcha,’ he says, beaming a smile. ‘I’m Tommy. It’s a fucking joke here…don’t mind my language. I’m a bit rough and ready and they don’t like that about me. Right thorn in the side. Speaking out. Standing up for our rights. Can’t even make a joke…now, before they take all of your stuff away, anyone got anything they want to trade?’

  ‘They take our stuff away?’ a man asks, the head of the ten-strong new group of now very alarmed people.

  ‘Bloody right they do. And you’ll probably get a kicking if you say anything. Woman the other day, she saw her husband hang himself and she got a kicking for crying. Saw it with my own eyes…creaming the best for themselves ain’t they…now, what you got? Any smokes? Booze? I got loads of choccy bars…Tommy’s shop is open for business!’

  A short while later and Pamela presents the new group to Sunnie and once more slips inside as though to seek shade.

  ‘Hi, are you all okay?’ Sunnie asks, noticing the group seem very sullen. Mind you, everyone coming into the fort is in shock in one way or another. ‘Bless, you look so tired. I won’t keep you long…what we ask is for everyone to give their food over and then we cook it all centrally and make sure we’ve got enough to feed everyone. Is that alright?’ she asks, full of genuine empathy.

  ‘Do we have to give our food over?’ the man in charge of the group asks, glancing at his wife and back to the others.

  ‘Why wouldn’t you, love?’ Sunnie asks. ‘My family did and everyone else is…’

  ‘But do we have to?’ his wife asks, sharing glances with her friends.

  ‘We’ve so many people to feed, if we store and cook it all together then we make sure everyone gets fed…’

  ‘And what if we don’t?’ the woman asks.

  ‘Don’t what?’ Sunnie asks.

  ‘Don’t give our food over. What then? They said you starve people and make them work until they’re dead…’

  ‘Eh? You what now?’

  ‘I’m not having that. I’m really not. I’ve got kids here…we’ll keep our food thank you. You’re not starving my kids…’

  ‘But…’

  ‘No. We heard this was a safe place,’ the woman says. ‘Someone said the Muslims started this and you’ve got loads of them everywhere…’

  ‘We’ve got one family love,’ Sunnie replies.

  ‘Enough of them though,’ someone else says. ‘All over there in their turbans…’

  ‘They’re Sikh my love, not Muslims…I’m Sikh…they’re my family.’

  ‘No. Sorry. We’re not giving our food up. We just want some space please and we’ll take care of ourselves…’ the woman says, moving her group away while casting looks at Sunnie.

  ‘What on earth was that about?’ Sunnie asks as Pamela walks from the back rooms.

  ‘Sorry what?’ Pamela asks her.

  ‘Them. Saying we work people to death and not giving their food over…is someone saying the Muslims started this?’

  ‘Yeah sorry,’ Pamela says, offering a confused half-smile, ‘your accent is so strong.’ She walks off, leading the group away into an atmosphere thickening by the minute as Sunnie shakes her head, not quite grasping what just happened as she looks past Pamela to Tommy standing outside his big tent with a nasty smirk on his face.

  ‘Ain’t so fucking cocky now is she,’ he mutters.

  ‘Who ain’t?’ Karl asks.

  ‘That fucking bitch,’ he says, nodding towards Sunnie. ‘Thinking they can take over in here…wankers…’

  ‘Hi, are you Tommy?’ a man asks, quiet and withdrawn, his head lowered, his whole manner nervous and scared. Thin from not eating and he glances back to a young woman sitting under a shelter a few rows over.

  ‘Depends on who’s asking,’ Tommy demands as the young man wilts back from his aggressive manner.

  ‘Sorry, I’m Josh… someone said you might have some ciggies…we er…I mean…’ he falters, pointing back to the woman. ‘We ain’t had a smoke for a couple of days…’

  ‘Ah gotcha,’ Tommy says, easing his aggression back. ‘Best come in then…’ he slips inside, motioning for the young man to follow him through to Tommy’s section and a mound of goods that looks like an illegal tuck-shop in a prison or a boarding school. Packets of cigarettes and rolling tobacco. Cans of deodorant, chocolate bars, snack food, perfumes, cans of beer and bottles of booze. ‘What you after then?’ Tommy asks him.

  ‘Just a pack of ciggies but…’ Josh pauses, swallowing nervously. ‘I don’t have any money…’

  ‘Money,’ Tommy laughs. ‘Money don’t mean anything now does it. Fucking money he says. Do me a favour…what else you got?’

  ‘Er…we’ve got phones and…’

  ‘What am I going to do with phones?’

  Josh falters again, his eyes glancing constantly to the cigarettes. Desperation in his eyes. His whole life ripped apart, his girlfriend crying constantly. A gnawing inside to at least have a smoke. To have something to do with his hands.

  ‘Can’t just give stuff away can I,’ Tommy says. ‘I worked hard to get all that…’

  Josh nods again, witless, scared and not knowing what to say.

  ‘You must have something,’ Tommy says, seeing exactly what he wants. He sighs heavily, shaking his head. ‘Tell you what I’ll do, give me that chain round your neck and I’ll slip you a couple of packs eh?’

  ‘My chain,’ Josh says, fingering his thin gold necklace. ‘My mother got it for my twenty-first birthday…’

  ‘Alright alright, fuck me…only suggesting. Jesus mate. Fine. You ain’t got anything then you ain’t got anything…come back when you do…’

  Josh swallows, wretched and broken. He needs to smoke. Cig
arettes will fix this. They’ll help. ‘Okay,’ he whispers, finding the clasp as Tommy picks two packets of cigarettes up. ‘Mum paid like two hundred quid for it…’

  ‘Things ain’t valued the same now mate,’ Tommy says, clocking the wretched look on the guy’s face. ‘Bleeding hell, okay, fine. I’ll stick another pack in for you. Just don’t tell everyone Tommy is a softy now, they’ll all be wanting special treatment…’

  ‘It’s worth more than three packs,’ Josh says.

  ‘Not to me it ain’t,’ Tommy says, hardening his manner to glare at the lad. ‘You wasting my fucking time or what? Karl? Matty? You lads there?’

  ‘Yeah what’s up?’ Karl asks, walking in with his big gut bulging out but looking large and frightening in the small space.

  ‘You alright?’ Mathew asks, looking from Tommy to the lad now looking even more terrified.

  ‘S’fine,’ Josh says, swapping the chain for the three packets.

  ‘Lovely!’ Tommy beams. ‘Nice doing business with you, come back when you need something. We can always work something out eh?’

  ‘Did you want something?’ Karl asks when the young man slips out.

  ‘Nah, you did fine,’ Tommy says, chucking them both a chocolate bar. ‘Just make sure you come when I call…helps make sure nobody takes the piss. Know what I mean?’

  ‘Hey, is Tommy in there?’ he hears someone else ask outside. Another woman shown in. Another trade made and more after that.

  Plans and schemes form in Tommy’s mind. A buzz inside. A rush of energy. He likes hearing people ask for him. Is Tommy there? Where’s Tommy? We need Tommy.

  He likes it a lot, and as his pile of goods grows so his sense of popularity does too. He starts to imagine himself building an empire from scratch and having minions running around after him while he sits like a spider in a web, luring the meek and scared to give him what they have, because it should be him running this fort.

  Maybe he should open a pub or something next? That would be a good step. He’s got loads of cans now, and a few bottles too. Few bottles of wine, some spirits. He pictures himself holding court over everyone, cracking jokes and making them all laugh and being popular. Yes. That’s what it is. That’s the thing he wants now. He wants people to need and respect him. He never had that before. He was jobless and lazy, people looked down on him.