Lenski goes first, walking fast towards the building site and with every step closer so the noise comes clearer.
‘MUZZIES OUT…MUZZIES OUT…MUZZIES OUT…’
Loud chanting and it takes a few seconds for her to realise what is being said. She spots the first beer cans as John strides behind her and the others rushing to catch up. More litter on the ground. More debris. The smell reaching them as they go past the building site towards tent town, seeing forty or so people drinking outside Tommy’s tent. Men with sticks and hammers and weapons. Knives and pipes. Men with tops off holding beer cans and bottles over their heads. Women too.
‘MUZZIES OUT…MUZZIES OUT…MUZZIES OUT…’
Tommy spots Lenski coming into view. A rush inside. A smirk on his face that he is making this happen. That he is going to wipe the grin off the smug Polish girl’s face and he leans back to sing loudly.
‘RUUUUULE BRITANNIA…BRITANNIA RULE THE WAVES…COS WE’LL NEVER NEVER NEVER BE SLAVES...’
‘What the hell is this?’ Lenksi asks, shouting to be heard as she spots Simar outside Damsa’s tent. His face cut and bleeding. His turban gone, and his black hair pulled from the knot. Maleek, Bashir and Tajj clutching sticks. Damsa inside holding her children. The other woman looking as terrified as she.
‘Fuck me,’ John says, reaching Lenski as the others catch up, all of them staring at the mess, at the piss and puke and shit. At the massed chanting coming from the huge drunk group.
‘What’s going on?’ Pardip yells, running towards them, eliciting more yells from the crowd. ‘Sim? What happened?’
‘Them racist wankers,’ Simar spits the words out, blood on his mouth, split lips and his clothing torn.
Sam and Pea come to a stop. Joan with them. Norman balking at the sight of it all.
‘LENSKI!’ Sunnie shouts, rushing over with Agatha. Both of them looking shaken to the core. ‘They’ve emptied the back rooms…it’s all gone. All the alcohol, the cigarettes…snacks, chocolate…’
‘They’ve been in my rooms too,’ Colin yells, rushing over, his face etched in fear and worry. ‘Stuff thrown everywhere…’
Lenski reels on the spot. Her head thumping. The heat rising with every minute. The air so thick. Everything so charged. Lilly isn’t here either. This is down to her now.
‘Did they do that to you?’ Jaspal asks, finally seeing his brother cut and bleeding. ‘DID THEY DO THAT?’
He turns off, pumped and ready to fight, marching towards the mass of people who break out with loud deep yells, brandishing weapons and throwing cans out.
‘Jas, get back you bloody idiot,’ Pardip says, dragging his younger brother back.
‘I’m not having this,’ Jaspal shouts. ‘You’ve got guns…stop them…give me a gun and I’ll fucking stop them…’
‘Jaspal!’ Sunnie snaps. ‘Calm down…’
‘Look what they did,’ Simar shouts, pointing at Maleek’s tent. ‘They’ve shit on it…bloody animals…’
‘You can’t shoot them,’ Norman says. ‘They’re not armed…’
‘I bloody can,’ Jaspal says.
‘Okay. We think,’ Lenski says, grabbing Jaspal to turn him hard. ‘We think. Yes? Simar. Is not time to fight now. No…everyone listen…Simar!’
‘I’m listening!’ he says, wiping the blood from his mouth.
‘Ameer,’ Lenski calls. ‘Is this happen all night?’
‘All night,’ Damsa calls, edging out from the tent with an instant roar from the crowd at the sight of her.
‘MUZZIES OUT…MUZZIES OUT…’
‘Just bloody shoot them…’ Jaspal says again. ‘Like shoot in the air and make them all be quiet…’
‘It won’t work,’ Kyle says. ‘They’re too pumped and drunk…’
‘I ask them. I say be quiet. I try this,’ Lenski says.
‘Don’t!’ Norman says quickly, pulling her back. ‘They won’t listen…’
‘I try. I do this. Wait…’ she pulls away, walking towards the big crowd. ‘WE SPEAK…TOMMY…WE SPEAK…’
‘Alright alright,’ Tommy shouts, laughing as he tries to wave his cohorts down. ‘What do you want?’
‘Some English cock…’ someone shouts, making them all burst into laughter with more jeers.
‘THIS WRONG. YOU STOP THIS,’ Lenski shouts. ‘YOU SCARE PEOPLE. BREAK THINGS…’
‘PISS OFF!’ Tommy shouts. ‘This here,’ he says, pointing at the crappy fence line. ‘This is our bit now…our land…no fucking muzzies or queers or fucking ragheads…’
‘YOU RACIST PRICK,’ Jaspal shouts, moving out with Simar as the crowd gees up, the tension ramping.
‘Or what?’ Tommy laughs at them, gleeful and drunk. ‘This is England mate…fuck off…’
‘No,’ Lenski calls. ‘This end now. Is trouble already…you stop before this gets worse…’
‘WHAT YOU GONNA DO? Shoot people for having a drink? Protecting the fucking muzzies more like. Yeah? Keeping it all for yourselves? Yeah? They’re infected. I heard it. Soldier told me. Said they started it. This is a jihadi thing…fucking…fucking wipe out the white man…revenge for nine eleven and…and…fuck ‘em! Get ‘em out…all of your foreigners and queer cunts…FACK OFF BACK TO YOUR OWN COUNTRIES…’
‘The world is over,’ Lenski says, shaking her head. ‘Is gone…why do this?’
‘OUR FORT MUZZIES OUT…OUR FORT MUZZIES OUT…OUR FORT MUZZIES OUT…’
She tries shouting again but the chants get louder and she jumps back as a beer can bounces off her leg. The anger escalating quickly.
‘Len, come back,’ Sam says, pulling her away.
Tommy stops chanting. Standing in the middle surrounded by sweaty half naked men. A grin on his face. A nasty smirk. His drunk mind mutating the lies into truth. Convincing himself the Muslims really did start this. Convincing himself he is standing up for his rights. Thinking of the woman who didn’t show care when his dick wouldn’t get hard. Thinking of how everyone was working and he was being left behind. Just like before the world changed. Anger inside. Wrath and a need to lash out and hurt. A vicious, bitter middle-aged man unable to cope with his emotions who will destroy the world and claim it was everyone else’s fault.
Norman watches it all, seeing the ugliness of it. The dangerous mob mentality that has brought down whole countries erupting right here, and the fort is too small and too fragile to withstand it.
‘What are we doing?’ Sam asks.
‘Get some bloody weapons and get into them,’ Simar says. ‘Round some lads up and we go in…will Peter send some guys over?’
‘They’re not there,’ Sam replies. ‘They’re all on a run to the docks with Lilly…’
‘There’s too many of them,’ Norman says. ‘And they’ve still got alcohol too. You can see the boxes behind them. I used to prosecute and defend people in court from riots and from my experience, this could go one of three ways. They’ll either blow themselves out and slowly drift off or they’ll start trashing everything, or worse they’ll try and break into the armoury…it’s how riots start. Mass civil uprising…’
‘So what do we do?’ Pea asks, everyone looking at the lawyer shaking his head.
‘I don’t know. The police would get them into one area and drag them out one by one and cart them off…we can’t do that. We don’t have water cannons or horses…we don’t have shields and we certainly can’t fight them head on. People will get killed and if we lose they’ll tear the fort apart…’
‘You said three options,’ Joan says.
‘I did,’ Norman replies. ‘The third option is they’ll form a lynch mob and go for anyone they think is a Muslim…’
‘Rotten sods,’ Colin says, shaking his head. ‘Absolute rotten sods…’
‘Of all the rotten, dirty, filthy bloody things to do,’ Mary shouts, turning a circle in the truck car park at the Southampton docks. ‘Can you believe it?’
‘Aye,’ Peter says darkly. The men all out of their vans staring to where the
container trucks were. The trucks that are now gone.
‘Stealing our bloody containers,’ Mary says.
‘Someone’s building a wall I guess,’ Willie says.
‘Do you think you thick ginger prick?’
‘Mary!’ Peter snaps.
‘Aye, shut your mouth, Mary.’
‘Willie! The pair of you just shut up,’ Peter says. ‘Lilly, what do you want to do? We’ve plenty of empty trucks here…
‘We’ll load what we can and get back,’ she says with skywards glance. ‘It’ll just take a bit longer…’
‘We have to protect the armoury,’ Kyle says. ‘If they go for that we have no choice…’
‘Agreed,’ Joan says.
‘Why wait for that?’ Jaspal asks again. ‘We have guns. We can stop them…’
‘Stop saying that ye daft twat,’ Kyle snaps. ‘If I give you a gun what then? You think you can shoot unarmed people? You think you can point a gun and shoot people dead…do you”
Jaspal stiffens, scowling and angry.
‘It’s not that easy,’ Kyle says. ‘I’ve seen this before and it is damn hard to kill an army charging at you, let alone when they are unarmed and standing there. Yes, they’re drunk and racists and dirty filthy shits, but I won’t kill them, and I’ve killed more people than all of you put together…we’ve got to think now. Be smart and stop sounding off with your fecking pride…’ he draws air, swallowing with another dark look at the chanting crowd. ‘We guard what is essential…the armoury and the people. We protect them…’
‘And the food,’ Lenski says.
‘Food can be replaced,’ Kyle says.
‘From where?’ Sam asks.
‘It’s taken days to get the stores filled,’ Agatha says. ‘Them bastards…all of ‘em…they wants stringing up they do…’
‘Honestly. I’d bloody string them up,’ Mary shouts. ‘Robbing our containers…’
Heat and noise again. Pressure growing. Pressure unrelenting. Keys found. Trucks found. The crane made to run and the painfully slow process of plucking containers from the thousands of stacks and plonking them down on the backs of the lorries begins. Fastening chains. Unfastening chains.
‘Is your head hurting?’ Mary asks Lilly as they wave the next truck towards the crane.
‘No,’ Lilly shouts.
‘Is that the infection doing that? Does it stop you having headaches? Right. Next zombie we meet is getting snogged…I’ll be having some of that I will…’
A look from Lilly, an eyebrow arched. Mary tuts, pulling a face. ‘Very bloody funny, Blondie. You know what I mean…shit!’ she ducks from the gunshot sounding out. The sharp crack of an assault rifle firing into the air as everyone turns to see a man striding from a big white van spilling more men out. All of them armed with rifles.
‘LEAVE MY FUCKING CONTAINERS ALONE,’ he yells out.
‘THEY’RE NOT YOUR BLOODY CONTAINERS,’ Mary yells back, striding towards him. ‘DID YOU STEAL THE OTHER ONES?’
‘DID YOU TAKE THE FIRST LOT?’ the guy shouts as Peter’s men rush from trucks. ‘WE’RE HAVING THEM…’ he adds, pointing beyond Mary and Lilly.
‘YOU BLOODY WAIT,’ Mary shouts, slinging her rifle and bunching her fists.
‘YOU WAIT,’ the man shouts, slinging his rifle and bunching his fists.
‘Wankers,’ Mary shouts, charging in.
‘Wankers,’ the other man shouts, charging in.
‘OUR FORT MUZZIES OUT…OUR FORT MUZZIES OUT…’
The chanting goes on, getting louder, angrier, deeper. Missiles sailing through the air. The crowd itching to rampage. Emboldened by the rules of society that armed authorities cannot, and will not, shoot unarmed protesters.
Lenski bites her bottom lip. Feeling helpless and stupid. She has a gun. She can shoot them, but she can’t. She knows she can’t. She remembers Maddox dragging a child out to shoot him dead in the compound and shudders at the memory, but then there is just no possible way of reasoning with so many drunk angry people. They’ve become like a single massed entity.
She tries again and again, waving her arms and shout for them to listen, trying to reason with them, but they just chant louder. Whipping themselves up into a frenzy as more missiles are launched out, making her retreat quickly for fear of being injured and even that just makes them worse. Like they are gaining a victory by her running back. The aggression rising with every minute and that awful, dreadful heat bearing down magnifying the ugly mood.
There’s no choice now. She knows that. ‘We have to get them out,’ she shouts at the others, running towards Damsa’s piss, puke and shit covered tent. ‘Damsa, we go now. Come quickly…’
‘No,’ Damsa holds still, clutching her children as the women cluster together. ‘They get worse when they see us…’
Kyle comes forward. ‘I’m sorry, Damsa. I am, but we’ve got to get you out now…there’s too many if they start charging…we’ll go quickly, okay? Straight down to the gate and we’ll get you over to the bay…’
‘The bay isn’t safe,’ Norman says. ‘The wall isn’t finished, and Peter’s taken all of his guys…’
‘Kyle,’ Joan says, pushing into the middle. ‘We need to guard the armoury and the food and the people…there’s not enough of us to do all of that…I suggest we corral everyone into the food rooms and leave two guarding the armoury.’
‘The stores are too full,’ Agatha cuts in.
‘You won’t get them in,’ Sunnie adds.
‘WATCH OUT…’ a shout from Simar watching the crowd who spots the flaming missile sent flying high into the air. A full toilet roll of soft paper set alight that arcs high and starts to drop, plummeting with a trail of sparks and landing next to Damsa’s tent.
‘Shit!’ John shouts out, running in to stamp the flames out with his feet.
‘MORE,’ Simar yells, seeing more flaming toilet rolls soaring up with a huge laugh coming from the crowd.
‘GET THEM OUT,’ Kyle shouts, drawing his pistols and he moves to stand between the crowd and the tent, showing them he is armed. Joan at his side holding her rifle, both of them hoping the sight will stop them, but it does nothing.
‘Out, come on!’ Lenski snaps, pulling Damsa and her family out of the tent and the sight makes the crowd scream louder as they spot Muslim women in black robes. Infected. Dangerous. They started this. They caused this infection. Everything is their fault.
‘It’s on fire,’ Pardip yells, running to the back of the tent now aflame from toilet roll. Kicking and stamping the structure down. Everything in the fort is so dry. Like a tinderbox that only needs a spark. Simar, Jaspal and Maleek run to help as Sam, Pea, Lenski, Colin, Agatha and Sunnie all cluster about Damsa and her family, ushering them down and away.
‘FUCKING CUNTS…’ a man runs out from the crowd, faceless, angry, part of the entity of the mass. A full beer can in his hands. Heavy and solid and he launches it out, sending it hard into the group, hitting Norman on the back.
Tommy jumps up and down, screaming so hard the veins in his neck push out. Matty next to him. Karl and Gwen doing the same. Patricia and Keith, suburbanites used to fine living now drunk on vodka, yelling and feeling that thirst for blood. Feeling that rush that comes from being part of a big crowd all acting as one. The anonymity of it. The release of fear fuelled anger made so much worse by the alcohol. Ordinary, scared people that cannot stop that flow of energy as they hold lighters to toilet rolls taken from Colin’s room and send them flying out. It’s fine to do this. It's allowed. They’re not individuals now, but part of the mob, of the whole. It’s not them doing it. And anyway, the muzzies started it. Everyone said they did.
Two sides charging in the docks, and the strangest thing of all is that in the heat of the truck car park and under the pressure of that awful heat, not one of them even thinks to shoot or use a gun. Instead, and as though an unspoken rule spreads out with near instantaneous understanding, they all sling their weapons.
What both sides see,
is that the other people are the same as them. Relatively clean looking survivors with guns who are clearly just trying to get containers.
Then one side see the other is made up of what mostly looks like very tough looking gypsy men, weathered and tanned with thick limbs and fading tattoos. With solid looking jaws and noses that speak of many fights and knuckles so hard they could punch through wood.
‘STOP,’ the lead guy shouts, holding his hands up as the two sides come together with everyone but Mary abiding his words and she slams her fist into his face, sending him staggering back. ‘Ow! What the fuck…’
‘Mary!’ Peter yells. ‘The man said stop…’
‘He said stop, Mary,’ Willie shouts.
‘Mary, what the hell you hit him for?’ Elvis shouts.
‘There was no need for that,’ someone on the other side shouts, helping the punched guy.
‘We were going to bloody fight,’ Mary shouts. ‘I didn’t hear him!’
‘You alright there, fella?’ Peter asks. ‘Is he alright?’ he asks the men helping the punched guy. ‘Ach, Mary. You’ve no need to hit the man…’
‘I said I didn’t bloody hear him.’
‘Is it broken?’ the man asks, trying to stem the blood while fingering the bridge of his nose. ‘It feels broken…is it broken?’
‘Aye, looking that way,’ Peter says. Tutting at Mary.
‘I didn’t bloody hear him,’ Mary says again.
‘I heard him and I’m half deaf…’
‘Piss off, Eggy. You weren’t deaf last night with your bloody fiddle were you? Ah, you’ll be fine there, just a wee punch it was…’
‘It doesn’t feel very bloody fine.’
‘Stop your whining. You shouldn’t have shot your gun off now,’ Mary chides him, ruffled at everyone tutting and shaking their heads at her. ‘It’ll add character anyway…broken noses always do…’
The Undead (Book 23): The Fort Page 27