by Park, Grant
“Yeah...? That would be great!” he said excitedly, “I better go get it before we head off!”
“Do you want me to come with you?” she asked as he was turning away, “You said it was pretty bad up there!”
“I dunno, it is pretty gross, but if we stick to the stairs we should be ok!”
“Let’s go then!”
Zoe grabbed her shotgun and Brandon slid his axe into his belt, they slipped out of the door without anyone seeing them leave and made their way upstairs; no doubt one of the adults would have demanded that they went with them, had they seen, and Brandon relished the thought of spending just a little time alone with Zoe.
“What was it like being stuck in that bunker?” Brandon asked.
“Oh, I wasn’t in the bunker, they only found me a couple of days ago. I was in a hotel till then.”
“You survived all this time on your own?”
“Ha! No! I was with a bunch of people, but they all slowly died off, Mr Crawley was the last to go, and he died the day I met that lot in there.”
“Oh, man! You haven’t had it easy at all, have you?”
“Easier than some; I’m still alive at least. It sounds like you have had it pretty rough too though.”
“Yeah, it ain’t been easy; it’s all the moving around, you never seem to get a chance to rest.”
“Being stuck in one place isn’t all it’s cracked up to be either; I swear I was going mad in that hotel!”
“I think this place is perfect; it’s a huge house and it’s on an island not too far away from good scavenging grounds, all it needs is a decent wall around the shoreline and it will be top notch!”
“Top notch, eh?”
“Aye! Top fuckin notch!” he laughed, “Here we are!”
They stood at the bottom of the slim staircase leading up to the loft; the door was still hanging open and off of its hinges and up there it still looked dark. An image of the man laying there with half of his head missing flashed into Brandon’s memory, “I don’t mind if you wanna wait here, it’s pretty messy up there; I’ll be two sec’s!”
“No way, I’m coming. I’m not staying down here on my own!”
“Ok then, but don’t say I didn’t warn you!”
They crept up the creaky stairs and into the loft; Brandon pulled a small torch out of his pocket and hefted the axe from his belt. A beam of red light was streaming in from the round window that pointed directly at the sunrise, it bathed the room in crimson and black shadows that Brandon’s torch struggled to penetrate. They rounded the chimney stack in the centre of the room and headed for the man and the shotgun. Brandon tried not to shine the light directly at the corpses head as he moved to pick up the gun: but something was wrong, this wasn’t how they had left the man; there was a deep cavity where his stomach was and his clothes were torn and tattered, something had been eating him.
A shrill squeal came from behind him and Brandon spun around to see a Husk latched on to Zoe’s back, its teeth bared and ready to sink into her shoulder. Brandon leapt to his feet as Zoe dipped down, desperately trying to keep herself from being bitten, the zombie dipped with her, salivating at the prospect of some fresh meat. Brandon flew at the fetid creature, ramming the top of the hatchet blade into its mouth, snapping its head backwards and loosening its grip on Zoe. The Husk staggered backwards as Brandon landed on his feet, still moving forwards he ducked down and swung the hatchet at its knee severing the leg in two, spinning and jumping up he cleaved the Husk’s head from its shoulders sending it tumbling across the floor.
Brandon turned to check on Zoe but found her stood pointing a shaking shotgun in his direction.
“Whoa, it’s ok, it didn’t get me! Are you ok, it didn’t get you did it?” he asked.
“No! No, no it didn’t get me,” she paused, “That was pretty impressive, Brandon!”
“Thanks!” he said shyly, abashed at the compliment, but also because, where the Husk had grabbed her had torn her white shirt, exposing part of her bra. He took his jacket off and handed it to her. “Your shirt is torn,” he said, looking to her eyes and then to the floor.
“Oh, thanks!” she said hugging the jacket to her chest.
Brandon ducked around her to pick up the shotgun and when he turned back she was just zipping the jacket up to the top, looking at him and smiling. He could feel his cheeks blushing and tried to cover it up with movement.
“We had better be getting back!” he said and they headed for the door.
They thudded their way back down the stairs and got just outside the dining room door just before it opened. Jim’s face appeared through the crack and called “Here they are!” to the others in the room. As they entered they got a lot of funny looks from them, especially Sarah, who was frowning at them with distaste. Brandon walked over to his dad who gave him a sly bump on the shoulder with a smile and a wink; but it turned to an uncomfortable puzzled frown when he noticed him carrying the shotgun.
“We had better be heading off then, I suppose,” his dad said.
“Yeah, if everybody’s ready,” Ethan said over the top of his father, “Cassie, Sarah and Zoe, you’re with me; Caleb, Brandon and Greg, you’re with Jim! Everybody good?” he asked, not waiting for a response, “Then let’s go!”
Everyone filed out of the room giving Brandon little chance to grab his spare coat from his pack, the overly large army jacket he had got from Frank. Jim just hopped lithely through the window; Brandon was tempted to follow him but thought better of it and followed the others out of the front door and round the side of the house, where the olive green Argo Cat’s that he had heard people talking about were sat. Jim was mopping down the rain soaked seats with one of the purple curtains from the dining room and presented Brandon’s seat in the back to him.
“What the fuck is that?” Jim asked Brandon’s dad.
“It’s a Naginata!”
“Handy is it?”
“More than you know!” His dad unscrewed the shaft of the blade and tucked it between the front seats and took his place in the front; he looked all too comfortable with the rifle on his lap, Brandon was worried that it would get in the way when he had to use the blade.
Greg was slow to take his place beside Brandon and didn’t look much of a conversationalist, so he just ignored him. Just before they left, Zoe came running up to him and handed him a box of shotgun shells, as she handed the box over their fingers met for just a second, but long enough to send shivers down his spine; he said “Thanks,” and got a smile in return; he took pleasure in watching her jog away. When he turned around, his dad was giving him another of his knowing smiles, which irked him.
“You know what you’re doing with that, son?” his dad asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yeah, Dad; the shells go in here,” He broke the barrel, replaced the two rounds and closed it again, “and this is the safety!” he flicked the catch to make the shotgun safe.
“I wasn’t talking about the shotgun, son!” his dad said with a smile, making Brandon blush just a little and Jim laugh out loud.
It wasn’t long before they were leaving; Jim took the lead with Ethan in the rear, they trundled slowly through the garden and round to the back of the house to a slipway and plunged the Argo Cats into the water; Brandon was amazed at how well they floated, and how well they moved through the water considering it was only the eight wheels spinning that propelled them.
The other side of the island shielded what looked to be at least a hundred boats and yachts anchored in the lake, Jim and Brandon’s dad discussed how easy it would be to get one of the yachts to the sea from here and the condition of the river leading away from the lake; they also discussed the fact that Frank had told them about the navy blowing up any other boats that they discovered on the shore line.
“Can’t say I heard anything about that, mate; but that’s not to say it isn’t true, those navy boys can go a bit hyper when you give them something to shoot at, they don’t see as much action as the rest
of us these days; well, didn’t should I say?” Jim said.
“I don’t know, Frank was a bit gun ho too, but he was TA!”
“Ha! Same goes for that lot! Bunch of crazy bastards! I take it that’s where you got the SA80?”
“Yeah, it’s a bit tatty but it works ok!”
“But for how long though? That’s an old model, a lot of flaws with that one, don’t rely on it too much; if it jams up, just drop it and use the blade”
“Will do, cheers...!”
_____________________________
The journey was slow but easy, the Argo Cats could cover pretty much any terrain, which led them high up into the hills again, but they could only go around twenty miles an hour which made the trip very tedious. The one saving grace was that there were no Firsts and very few Seconds roaming around the hills; which made Greg feel a lot safer about his situation. The fact that he was stuck looking at the back of that smartarse bastard Caleb’s head the entire journey was almost as bad as the inane chatter coming from him and Jim, Greg would have happily wrapped his hands around Caleb’s throat for the embarrassment he caused him the night before, that is if it wasn’t for the shotgun toting vermin sat beside him, the bastard’s seed, Brandon.
Greg took to staring out of the left hand side of the vehicle at the passing scenery; they were just passing through a large patch of dense pine trees up towards yet another peak where they would be blessed with a resplendent view of the valleys below. Greg had had trepidations about entering the woods but had kept them to himself to save losing yet more face, but now that they were here he couldn’t have been happier, despite the company he kept, the recent rainfall had awoken the forest with a myriad of colours and scents; Greg wasn’t scared to admit that he was a city boy, he had spent most of his life stuck behind a computer and little experience with nature; sure, he knew a lot about nature but he had never really been interested in being part of it. Maybe this is what his ex-wife meant about all that ‘not being outgoing enough’ crap! Bitch!
“Alright, Greg?” Caleb asked. He was turned in his seat so as his knees were pointing out into the forest and he had his back to Jim; he rested his arm around the back of his seat and looked quite comfortable in doing it.
“Yeah, I suppose!” Greg said, trying not to make conversation.
“Look, mate, I’m sorry about what I said last night, I went a bit OTT; I was just shocked, y’know?”
“Hmmph!” Greg grunted and looked away; it would take more than that to appease him.
“And I’m sorry I made you look daft, I know you’re not daft; but you have to admit that what you did was a bit stupid!”
“Stupid? Do you know how difficult it is to hack into a government facility? It wasn’t stupidity, it was genius!”
“I don’t mean the process of the act, I mean the act it’s self! How you did it may have been genius, but actually putting a nuclear power plant into meltdown is just plain stupid,” Caleb said, not in an angry way but like a man struggling to comprehend, “You are quite clearly intelligent, Greg, but what I don’t understand is why you didn’t do something else and pretend that you had set the core to meltdown? You could have set the gents hand dryer to heat up and made it look like the core was melting to a man like Michaels!”
“Did I mention he had a gun pointed at me?”
“You did, mate. But you can’t tell me that it didn’t cross your mind to trick him!”
“It did, but Knox was there and.... well, he’s smarter than he looks!”
Caleb looked at him with a knowing smile, “It was a challenge wasn’t it?” Greg said nothing, “It’s understandable, bud. You had been cooped up in that bunker for how long? Nothing to do but twiddle your thumbs; then Michaels gives you a challenge and you leap on it! Smart guys like you need a challenge, if they aren’t being challenged they get.... irritable!”
Greg found himself nodding along to what Caleb was saying, he knew it was just flattery, but he had always been a sucker for flattery. Caleb wasn’t such a bad guy after all.
“As far as I’m concerned, what’s done is done! All we can do now is fix it, and we are going to all have to work together on this one! No hard feelings?” Caleb held out his hand.
“Nah, no hard feelings,” Greg said and shook Caleb’s hand, “though you might want to share that sentiment with Ethan.”
“Yeah, what’s with that?” Caleb asked, letting go of Greg’s hand.
“We, uh.... don’t really see eye to eye a lot of the time,” Greg said looking to Jim, who was just driving but no doubt still paying attention.
“Ha,” Caleb laughed, “I think I will leave that to you and him, I’m not here to stir up shit! I’m sure you two will sort things out between you soon enough!”
‘Not bloody likely’ Greg thought to himself and phased out the rest of what Caleb was saying, he soon moved on to talking to his boy but Greg really wasn’t interested; he was more concerned with the fact that Michaels and Knox were out there and more than likely en route to the same destination as themselves. That bastard Knox terrified Greg, and with good right; he was an ape of a man with nought but violence on his mind, he loved to intimidate him while in the bunker, and he didn’t even have to look at him to do it, he would simply walk right through him as if he wasn’t there at all, or stand right in front of him, so uncomfortably close that Greg would have to move just to breathe; how he hated the man, but then, he had grown to hate most of the people in his life. All apart from Ivy that was, he really had loved her (the horrible cow), they had met through an online dating agency and discovered that they lived only a few miles from each other, it all seemed so perfect. When they finally arranged to meet it had forced him to get his act together, he lost weight, tidied himself up, he even cleaned the flat just in case, and when they met, god it was amazing; both of them entered a tempest that neither could break from, the relationship snowballed and before the year was out they were married (what a bloody mistake that was).
They say that you truly get to know a person once you have been with them for a year, and it was around a year later that the true Ivy came out; the whining, moaning malicious bitch that she was. Let’s do this, let’s do that, clean up this, wear that, why are you always so moody, how come you never want to spend time together anymore? It was exhausting, but beautiful; he had never been happier than when sitting alone with her, why could she never understand that he was happy just with her? He didn’t need the outside world as long as he was with her!
Then she broke his heart. She just up and left one day, out of the blue, she left him a note saying that she couldn’t do it anymore; she never did explain what.
Greg found himself wondering if she had made it, wandering if she was still alive. He hoped she was dead. Bitch!
Greg saw a reflection of his own wistful eyes in Caleb’s as he caught him looking back to the other Argo, no doubt looking at Cassie; he couldn’t blame him, Greg would be lying if he said that he hadn’t spent more than a few nights dreaming of that particular forbidden fruit. It was a shame what happened to Carol, whatever happened to Carol, Greg had put in a good bit of time on that one in the bunker, a real scatterbrain she was, the whole zombie thing hit her hard and made her a little unstable; he had spent many a night talking to her, comforting her, and getting nowhere. What a waste of time! He had seen her run back into the building and then all those Firsts run in after her.
It was just his luck!
_________________________
Sarah had spent the last hour or so chastising Zoe on the merits of safe sex (even though the world was falling apart, there was still no excuse for frivolity) and frankly Ethan was sick of it.
Earlier he had seen Caleb talking to Greg, and even shaking hands with him, which was a shame really, Ethan had just started to like him; he couldn’t quite work out whether Caleb was a better or worse man than himself for being able to forgive Greg for his idiocy. But he came to the conclusion that he didn’t care either way, he was done wa
sting time on that man.
Ethan decided it was time they had a short break and radioed Jim.
“Hey, Jimbo...! How we lookin’...?”
“It’s all good round my way, Big E. You lookin’ to take five...?”
“That I am, swing round those trees on your ten and we will take a break!”
“Ten four...!”
Jim swung round just as he expected him to do, they circled the small group of trees to make sure there was nothing unexpected lurking within, then turned in and reverse parked beside each other.
“Ok folks,” Ethan said loud enough for everyone to hear, “We are here for twenty minutes, no more. I want everyone to stay close, if you have to go anywhere take someone with you, and take a weapon!”
It was coming on noon and they had been travelling for a good six hours so everyone was happy to get out and walk around for a bit; they should have travelled around eighty miles but the terrain they had had to cover had been hard and slow going, they were lucky if they had covered half of that. Zoe pretty much ran away from Sarah towards Brandon, and Ethan couldn’t blame her, that woman couldn’t half rabbit on; Sarah went to talk to Jim anyway and Caleb came over to talk to Cassie; so where did that leave Ethan, talking to Greg? ‘I don’t bloody think so’ Ethan thought, he was just about to join Cassie and Caleb when he heard a man’s voice crackle through the radio.
‘Hello? Is there anyone there, hello?’
Ethan rushed over to the radio and scooped it up
“This is Sergeant Rigby speaking. Who am I talking to?”
‘See! I told you I fucking heard him!’
“Hello? Who am I speaking to?” Ethan repeated.
‘We, uhh.... we’re in trouble! Can you come and help us?’ the voice said in a decidedly untroubled manner.
“Who am I speaking to? What is your location?”
‘We need help! Can you come and help us?’
“Your location...!” Ethan said firmly.