Wild Strawberry: Book 3 Ascent

by Trevor Donnelly

  Will pretended to be asleep, and watched her through eyes open just enough to see.

  He realised that pretending to be unconscious while watching her wash was probably not the most gentlemanly thing to do, so he turned away from her, pretending to roll in his sleep.

  He opened his eyes fully now his back faced her and looked out across the fields. There was no sign of life or unlife.

  Finally he spoke, his back still turned, “We have to finish our shopping today.”

  Siobhan sighed, “Yes, I wonder where’s still open?”

  * * *

  As soon as Danniella and Tina crossed the M25, the massive motorway that encircled Greater London and formerly the busiest road in the United Kingdom, the number of undead on the streets rose exponentially.

  In the countryside they could travel for a mile without seeing anything, and when they did stumble across an isolated pocket of zombies they could speed away. The city was an entirely different proposition. An alarming number of roads were blocked: some by army barricades, but mostly by crashed cars or jams of cars overrun as they tried to escape London. The roads that weren’t blocked still required careful negotiating. But worst of all in the city the number of zombies had increased. They now had a permanent and growing crowd of zombies following them. They were not able to gain enough speed to shake them off, as the roads were littered with obstacles, from dead bodies to smashed-up or burnt-out cars.

  Danniella clutched a map of London, while Tina sat hunched over the wheel on the lookout for obstructions.

  Twice they had to drive into a crowd of zombies, which did the car no favours, and splattered the windscreen with reddish-black blood. The wipers were out of water, so the window remained smeared and their visibility limited.

  Their chosen route into London was to run parallel with the main A2 route, and then drive through Blackheath to Greenwich, where they hoped to find a boat to take them back to the centre of the city and the entrance to Down Street.

  They would have to fight their way through several of the undead in order secure the labs, but there would hopefully be no more than half a dozen, and the research centre was divided into small, securable areas.

  “As long as we don’t have to deal with too many of them at once we should be fine.” Danniella was trying to reassure herself as well as Tina.

  “Anything is better than living in the dark waiting to die,” Tina spoke with a sigh.

  Feeling responsible for the virus, Danniella had considered suicide more than once, but she had refused to run away from the problem she had helped create. She recognised the despair in Tina’s voice, and worried that her companion may be helpful in a fight, but Tina’s presence could pull Danniella’s moral even lower.

  * * *

  With Arlene gone the shopping trip became much more difficult. Primal instinct made Will want to be the ‘hunter-gatherer’ so Siobhan could stay in the relative safety of the car.

  However, Siobhan insisted, “I’m faster, more agile, and you are the better driver.” She didn’t really believe the last point, but hoped it would appeal to Will’s dented male pride.

  After a long discussion Will conceded, “OK, but I don’t like it.”

  They targeted garages and small village stores. The stores tended to be boarded up, but garages were often looted.

  At length they found enough to call it a day.

  “I’d really like some new books.”

  Will rubbed his beard thoughtfully. “It’s gonna be dangerous to get them, I don’t know if they’re worth the risk.”

  “Books not worth the risk?” Siobhan shook her head. “We could be spending the rest of our lives down there; this could be the last time we ever, ever go outdoors. We need to get a lifetime’s entertainment.

  “Shite.” They had talked about life underground, but for the first time Will had a vision of what that could really be like. “Bugger the books! We need whiskey, and some films.”

  “So we’re agreed, entertainment is a priority?”

  “OK.”

  “And you’re with me that this is worth risking our lives for?”

  “Abso-fucking-lutely!”

  “I know where to go!” Siobhan sat upright in her seat, “No wait!” She slumped back down.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I was thinking of Lakeside, the big shopping centre, but it’s the wrong side of the Thames; we’d have to cross at the Queen Elizabeth Bridge or the Blackwall Tunnel.”

  “I’m not going down the tunnel. It’d be a death trap.” He paused. “Not sure about the bridge. Almost certainly blocked.” They were driving past a garage with several cars for sale. At the end of a line of grubby cars stood a few grubby motorbikes and scooters. “It would be almost certainly blocked for cars. But what about a motorbike?”

  Siobhan had visions of hordes of the undead tearing her from a bike. This competed with visions of her driving through the streets at eighty miles an hour. “I don’t know, I don’t know, it’s tempting.”

  They pulled into the garage forecourt.

  It seemed deserted.

  “You look at the shop, I’ll look at the bikes.”

  “You’re not going to be cautious and stay with the car?”

  “Fuck the caution, you’ve just got risk it sometimes, you know, feel the rain in your hair.”

  Siobhan smiled. “But let’s keep the doors open, and the engine running.”

  They left the car and ran, stooped low, treading as quietly as possible. Siobhan found the shop door open, and the shop was a mess: most of the shelves toppled over and the contents scattered across the ground.

  There was blood all over the counter. Siobhan stood up straight, acutely alert. Then the smell hit her. It was the stench of rotting human flesh. A smell that six months ago she never would have imagined becoming familiar.

  She kept looking around, while kneeling and fumbling through the scattered shop contents on the floor, picking up items to look at them, then throwing them into the bag.

  After a few minutes exploring she looked round behind the counter. There was a dead body. The arms were covered in bites and the material of its green hooded top torn and stained red. Then she realised the body was not totally dead. The neck was snapped, laying at an extreme angle. But the head was still animated. When it caught sight of Siobhan out of the corner of its eyes, the jaws started snapping, and a sickening gurgling noise started up in its throat.

  Siobhan felt her bile rise.

  Her head was spinning. But she returned to reality as she saw the row of keys hanging behind the counter. She scooped them up, averting her gaze from the creature’s snapping mouth, and ran outside to show Will.

  Will was trying to hotwire the largest motorbike.

  “I think I found the keys!” She spoke in a loud whisper.

  “Good girl!” Will beamed.

  He ran back inside and looked through the keys, searching for the key rings for the cars and bikes. He gathered a pocketful of the likely suspects and returned to the forecourt.

  As he approached one of the cars at the back of the lot Will jumped at the movement he saw within. There were at least two creatures inside, smacking against the windows as soon as they saw living outside.

  “I’ll watch them,” hissed Siobhan, “you get some bikes sorted.”

  “But-”

  “No buts, it’s only a matter of time before one works out how to open the door or smash the windows.”

  In the cramped confines of the car there was not enough room for the creatures to get any leverage, but the glass would not survive the vicious pounding for long.

  The car rocked alarmingly as the creatures thrashed and writhed inside.

  Will cheered in triumph as the bike’s engine roared to life.

  “Do you want to hop on the back?” He shouted to his companion, “Or should I try to start another?”

  Siobhan nodded towards a blue moped, “We shouldn’t put all our eggs in one basket. I’ll take the
scooter.”

  Will hurried over to the machine, fumbled with the keys, and in a moment its engine was also purring.

  “Let’s go!” Will shouted.

  As they hopped onto the bikes they heard the car window smash, and two creatures were pulling themselves out through the broken glass.

  The zombies were sliding across the front of the car, as Will confidently rolled his bike off its stand.

  As a teenager Siobhan had once ridden a friend’s motorcycle as a teenager, and remembered that the technique was fairly easy, but couldn’t quite recall how to do it now.

  Will shouted some instructions and she started with a jolt, just as the zombies staggered to their feet and started to run towards her.

  Fear and inexperience made her accelerate too fast, and she almost fell off as she shot forward, and then she had to turn sharply and skidded on the ground that was still wet from the previous night’s thunderstorm.

  After a wobbly start she began to run steadily.

  The cold wind in her face was exhilarating.

  Now that she was actually moving she began to realise how vulnerable she was on two wheels. In the car they had the occasional creature leap out at them. Sometimes they could swerve to avoid a zombie, sometimes they had no choice but to run it over. On the bikes their choices were reduced dramatically. If they hit a zombie, no matter how badly they smashed the creature up, they would come off worse.

  The other unnerving thing about this mode of transport was the noise, which was loud and unmistakable. Whenever they arrived in an area they knew that any resident zombies would already be aware of their presence.

  * * *

  The roads around the large, open, green space from which Blackheath took its name, were all blocked. Danniella and Tina decided to ride across the Heath itself.

  The solid ground was good, but the untended grass on the Heath had grown tall, and obscured the vire.

  “That way!” Tina shouted, pointing towards the far end of the Heath, “We can try to get through Greenwich Park: it should be less busy than the streets.”

  The car lurched as it bumped over something hidden in the grass, and they heard what sounded like fists pounding the its underside.

  “Oh shit,” gasped Danniella, “I really didn’t like the sound of that.”

  “Oh my God! Look!” Tina pointed to the edge of the Heath.

  They were now in the middle of a large open space, surrounded by what had once been some of the most expensive houses in London. Now out of these houses, side streets and back alleys the dead came pouring out onto the grass. Tina had never seen them in such numbers.

  “We’re never going to be able to plough our way through that lot!” Yelled Tina.

  At that moment the car lurched ahead and downward, and with a splash and the sound of smashing glass they came to a sudden stop.

  The driver’s side air bag inflated in Danniella’s face. There was no passenger air bag, so Tina felt the seatbelt lock and cut into her shoulder as she was jarred to a halt.

  They had driven straight into a small ornamental lake in the middle of the Heath. It had been hidden from view by the overgrown grass. Danniella tried to push back the air bag and turn the key, but the engine was dead.

  Tina inhaled sharply, “So this is it. Dan, it’s been good to know you!”

  Danniella flung her door open. “Come on, we’re not beaten yet! We’re almost at the river, we can run for it!”

  Tina sighed. Hope came as a disappointment to her. “Shit!”

  The only direction that they were not coming from was the long wall of Greenwich Park. Beyond the park lay Greenwich Village, and just a little further was the River Thames.

  They were half a mile from safety. Near enough to sprint the whole way, but far enough to totally exhaust them in the process: there was no margin for error.

  “Come on Tina, we’ve got work to do!” Shouted Danniella as she started to run towards the Park.

  Tina grudgingly followed.

  They could not begin to guess the numbers of zombies that were running towards them with chilling speed and single-minded determination: hundreds, probably thousands. The sound of them in such numbers seemed almost human again: like a crowd screaming at a goal in a football stadium.

  The distance also made it hard to identify them as undead; they were too far away for Danniella and Tina to distinguish any of their distorted features: too far away at the moment.

  Tina remembered the Heath from years before; she used to come here to fly her kite as a child, along with dozens of others. On a windy Summer day the sky above the Heath would be filled with dancing, looping multicoloured kites. However, now the smell of rot pervaded the whole area as the wind bore the stench of death everywhere.

  As they ran a figure dead ahead of them sat up: a dark lump of charred flesh, but conscious emerged from the grass ahead of them.

  The creature had obviously been on fire its hair and much of its clothes had burnt away and it was blackened beyond recognition.

  With a mixture of relief and horror they saw that the monster’s eye sockets were empty, blackened holes: it could not see them.

  This burnt mess reached for them blindly, groping the air, sensing them nearby, frenzied with hunger, yet unable to locate its meal.

  They ran past the pitiful ruin that had once been a living person, and hurried on towards the Park entrance.

  As they drew nearer, their muscles screaming in protest, they saw that the entrance they were heading for, a tall and solid metal gate, was closed.

  Tina remembered the Park from childhood trips, and shouted breathlessly at Danniella, “To the right! Run to the right! There’s another entrance! Iron Gate!”

  Their change in direction not only meant longer on the Heath which was rapidly filling with zombies, but also meant running towards the solid line of creatures that was charging towards them from the West. They just had to reach the gate before the approaching mass.

  “Faster!” Danniella screamed.

  The creatures were closer now, closing in from every direction except the North where the tall, stone wall of Greenwich Park loomed ahead.

  Danniella knew that if the Park was as full as the Heath they would have no hope. They only had half a chance, and no chance at all if they couldn’t get in through the next gate.

  They could see the faces of the zombies now, make out the injuries, bites and torn flesh that had led them to becoming undead.

  Tina didn’t dare look back, she could hear them close behind her, and imagined she could feel their cold fingers reaching out for her hair.

  They almost ran past the next entrance, a small archway, with a small wrought-iron gate, mercifully slightly open.

  They could hardly hear the creak of the rusty hinge over the noise of the approaching horde.

  Danniella slammed the gate closed behind them and slammed the bolt across. The mechanism was fairly robust, but it would not hold the unstoppable tide of the dead for long.

  Tina pointed down the hill: “Thames!” She was so breathless she could barely speak, “River! There!”

  They set off down the hill, but stopped almost immediately when they saw three creatures at the bottom suddenly turn and start to charge towards them.

  Tina and Danniella started to climb back up the hill, each step bringing agony to their exhausted muscles. They were heading back towards the arms of the dead reaching through the gate that, for the moment, blocked their way.

  “This way! “ Tina yelled through gritted teeth, running back along the other side of the wall, parallel to where they had run already.

  An animalistic scream from directly behind them told the women that a zombie had been lurking nearby and had now joined the chase.

  There was a small hedge with a gate at waist height. Despite their aching limbs they both vaulted the gate with wings loaned by fear.

  Danniella risked a glance over her shoulder as they ran through an overgrown rose garden. With satisfaction sh
e saw that the fence had tripped up the creature. It sprawled on the ground. It was not salvation, but it would buy them a few more seconds.

  They ran on, and after another small fence came to a forest. This would shelter them from the zombie’s view when they inevitably came flooding after them through the gate in a matter of seconds, but it also meant they couldn’t see any hazards that might be lurking close at hand.

  Tina was aware that they were no longer running towards their goal: they were just running away from the zombies.

  The burn in her legs made it clear she would not be able to keep up this pace for long. They needed to make every step count or find a safe place to rest.

  On they ran, until Tina remembered there was a deer enclosure up ahead.

  Looking back she could no longer see the three zombies that had chased them up the hill, nor the newcomer which had tripped over the gate.

  Their elation, however, was short lived: as suddenly they heard the crash of the park gate collapsing under the weight of hundreds of zombies.

  The noise as they poured in was deafening. Tina wondered briefly what acoustic anomaly would make the sound so constant and unremitting, the noise of the dead smashing through the gate behind them blending with the creatures’ shrieks and growls into one hellish chorus.

  As they emerged from the trees they found the wind had suddenly whipped up. Autumn leaves, which had been left to rot swirled in the air around them. As they finally broke cover Danniella’s steps faltered, even though there were creatures close behind. Scattered around were at least fifty of the undead. They had thousands behind them, and dozens in front.

  * * *

  Will and Siobhan found an eco-warehouse-store within a few miles. It was the first expedition that was entirely without incident. The shop was empty and the only sign that anything was amiss was that the door had been left wide open, swinging on rusting hinges. They found solar panels, which they couldn’t carry while they were on motorbikes, but left them wrapped up by the roadside so they could collect them when they returned with the car.