by Thomas Hall
Dale looked at Beth and then back at Solomon. ‘I need to get Beth to the school first.’
‘The school? Why do you want to go there?’
‘My sister,’ Beth said.
Solomon shook his head. ‘They evacuated the school an hour ago. Everyone’s in the town hall.’
Beth looked at Dale. She looked scared.
Dale nodded. ‘It’s okay. I’ll take you to the town hall and you’ll find Dawn.’
‘Then you can suit up and find me,’ Solomon said. He didn’t wait for an answer.
Dale watched Solomon turn and disappear around a corner. A moment later he heard gunfire.
He took Beth’s hand. He felt more confident now that he had seen Solomon and he had what amounted to orders. He was just a soldier at heart, even dangerous orders were better than none at all.
The zombies were massing around the village hall. It was as if they could tell that people were hiding inside. From the outside and across the other side of the street Dale could see nothing to suggest that people were there.
‘What do we do?’ Beth said.
He shook his head. He wanted her to be quiet so he could think.
There was no way they could get across the square. There were too many zombies. If one of them noticed them, then they would all turn. But they had to find a way inside.
‘Is there a back door?’ Dale said.
‘I think so,’ Beth said. ‘There’s a garden so I suppose there must be a door.’
‘Good enough.’ Dale pulled her away from the square. She seemed almost reluctant to go but they had to get inside.
They ran through the back streets and alleyways. Now that he had seen them Dale seemed to hear the zombies moaning constantly. It was an unpleasant sound that put him in mind of drugged patients in a mental asylum. He wanted to talk to Beth just to block it out but it was too big of a risk.
They made good time. The houses around the marketplace were smaller than those on the outskirts. Rows of cramped terrace buildings with small gardens. They ran past a house where there was a dog barking in the window, another where there was a zombie walking in circles on the lawn.
He could hear Beth panting but he pulled her onwards. There was no time to rest now.
‘It’s here,’ Beth said.
They stopped in the alleyway behind a dark wooden fence. There was no gate but Dale could see the town hall some distance behind it.
‘Are you okay climbing?’ he said.
Beth nodded.
He laced his fingers together and helped her up. She was light but she made short work of the fence and a moment later she was out of sight on the other side.
At the end of the street, a lone zombie appeared. It stopped and looked at Dale. It moaned. He could barely hear it over the sound of all the others.
‘Dale hurry up,’ Beth whispered from the other side of the fence.
Dale decided that the lone zombie wasn’t going to cause a problem. He jumped up and caught the top of the fence. He started to pull himself up.
He heard something running towards him and he stopped. He looked down and saw the zombie running along the alleyway. Up close, he could see that it was Rosa. Her flesh had yet to spoil and she was moving quickly. For a moment, he was too surprised to do anything other than hang there looking at her.
‘Dale?’ Beth said.
Her voice brought him back to himself. He scrambled the rest of the way up the fence and pulled his feet up behind him just before Rosa arrived.
He landed with a thud beside Beth.
‘Are you alright?’ she said. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
Dale nodded. ‘They got Rosa.’
‘No!’ Beth said. ‘How do you–‘
She cut herself off. They could both hear the zombie scratching at the other side of the fence. Dale grabbed Beth’s hand without thinking about it and led her away from the fence, across the garden to the village hall.
The door at the back was locked. Dale banged against it until his hand hurt. Then he started to kick.
‘Dale calm down,’ Beth said. She touched his arm.
He turned to look at her. His face felt red.
Beth reached into her pocket and took out a key. She unlocked the door and Dale followed her inside.
It was dark and cold and he couldn’t hear anybody. The corridor smelled mouldy.
They walked in silence. Dale watched Beth but she didn’t look back at him. He thought she was still angry. He wanted to say something. To explain. But everything that he thought to say seemed wrong.
At the end of the corridor, he began to hear a murmur. At first, it sounded like zombies moaning and he was momentarily convinced that they would open the door and find that everyone he knew in the village had been turned. He went so far as to stop Beth opening the door. Pushed in front of her and opened it himself.
The large hall was full of people. There were so many of them and the space so small that they couldn’t stand in separate groups. They huddled together and spoke so quietly that Dale could still hear the zombies outside.
‘I don’t see her,’ Beth said.
Dale looked around. He scanned faces and the backs of heads but he couldn’t see Dawn either.
‘What if she’s not here Dale? What if she’s still at the school?’
‘She wouldn’t have stayed at the school when everyone else was coming here,’ Dale said. He didn’t think she would, but a far more worrying thought had occurred to him: what if she had never been to school at all? Beth might not have been aware of it but Dawn made a habit of bunking off with her friends.
‘Is that her?’ Beth said.
Dale looked across the room. He couldn’t see.
‘Dawn?’ Beth shouted. Her voice caused several people to turn around and one of them was Dawn.
Beth pushed through the crowd. Dale followed. They did their best to move out of the way but the room was small and there was furniture and a lot of people. It took them a long time to get across to Dawn who was standing amongst a group of other children. Most of whom looked a lot younger.
‘Dawn,’ Beth said. She threw her arms around her sister. ‘I was so worried.’
Dawn looked uncomfortable and embarrassed. Beth either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
Dale left them to it. He slipped quietly away and this time he had no trouble getting through the crowd that had gathered in the village hall. There were a lot of people there but he knew that it wasn’t all of them. Some would have refused to leave their homes and some of them would be in the street fighting.
He walked back along the corridor and outside into the garden. He stopped and listened but he could no longer hear Rosa at the fence. The village hall was connected to the building where the Patrol Men kept their headquarters. Dale jumped over the fence and went inside.
The building was quiet and empty. There was enough light coming through the small windows for him to make his way into the changing rooms. Most of the armour had gone. He found his own set and started getting dressed.
When he was ready, he went to the equipment cupboard and took out a couple of guns and ammo. He took spares and slipped them into every pocket he had. Dale dropped a magazine on the floor. He bent over to pick it up. His hands were shaking.
At the door, he took deep breaths and tried to calm down. He could hear the zombies moaning outside. He knew what he was about to face and he didn’t like it one bit. So far he had been acting on autopilot. Following Solomon’s orders, but now he realised that he didn’t have to do that if he chose not to.
There were so many zombies in the marketplace that there was a good chance they would all be killed. What was the point of putting himself at risk so he could die alongside them? There would be no one left to tell him off for hiding. Besides, Solomon’s orders weren’t the same as army orders. There was nothing he could do if Dale refused to follow them.
He thought about the night he had spent with Jessie and he knew she was out there too. She had offe
red him comfort and warmth when the whole world seemed to be against him. In the end, it was that, rather than orders from Solomon, that persuaded Dale to open the door and go out.
The noise was like something from a nightmare. The zombies moaned and their bones crunched and clicked. There were so many of them that Dale couldn’t see across the courtyard to the buildings on the other side. He closed the door behind him and slipped quietly around the edge of the marketplace.
At first, none of the zombies noticed him. They were turned towards the village hall meaning Dale could move around unseen. He gripped the gun tightly and moved quickly. The first order of business was to find the other Patrol Men so they could co-ordinate their efforts.
In front of the clock tower, a zombie turned towards him. Dale recognised Rosa’s husband Michael and wondered what could have happened. Had zombies broken into their house or had they been caught on their way to the village hall?
Not wanting to draw more attention to himself than he needed to, Dale turned the gun around and struck Michael over the head with the butt. He didn’t drop at once. Michael’s mouth opened and he lunged forwards trying to bite him. Dale managed to move out of the way but space was tight for both of them.
He turned around. Ready to hit Michael again but something stopped him. He felt hands on his arms trying to pull him into the crowd of zombies. He tried to fight them off but he felt teeth on his arm. The body armour only protected his body. His limbs had no more protection than the coat he had been wearing.
The material was torn away by hungry mouths. Dale tried to move. He made it a step and then he bit his lips together to keep from crying out. Teeth tore through the material of his jacket and into the flesh of his arms. He felt his knees buckle and he thought that he would be dragged down to the ground to die under the feet of a thousand zombies.
The biting stopped. He pulled his arm free. Dale checked his gun and then turned meaning to shoot Michael in the head, regardless of how many other zombies it would bring towards him.
Michael wasn’t moving. He looked at Dale with big black glassy eyes. His mouth was covered in blood. Dale watched as he started to cough and choke and then fell to the floor. A moment later he had disappeared beneath the shuffling footsteps of the other zombies.
Dale moved quickly around the crowd. There was no time to stop and wonder what had happened to Michael. His arm hurt but he pulled the sleeve together and hoped that no one would notice he had been bitten. The blood was already beginning to clot.
He made it out of the marketplace and then he heard gunfire. He walked quickly towards it hoping that he would find the Patrol Men together so that they could fill him in on their plan.
Dale found them down a dark, narrow alleyway. He was relieved to see them all there. They weren’t making much progress but they were keeping the zombies back and that could be counted as a small victory. Although most of the zombies didn’t appear interested in them.
‘Hold your fire,’ Huey said.
Dale walked towards them with his hands in the air.
‘What’s going on?’ Dale said when he reached them. Jessie looked at him but didn’t say anything.
‘What does it look like?’ Anton said. His face was covered in sweat or tears.
‘Where’s Solomon?’ Dale said. He looked at the faces again thinking that he must have missed their leader amongst them but then he counted their heads and realised that they were one short.
They all looked away. Behind him, Dale could hear the zombies moaning loudly. More would be coming, he realised, they were calling for others.
‘Has something happened to him?’ Dale said.
Jessie put a hand on his arm. The others looked at him with sympathy as if it shouldn’t have been the other way around.
‘Where is he?’
‘He’s dead,’ Jessie said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Dead?’ He couldn’t be dead. Solomon was the leader. What were they supposed to do without him? Dale looked at the faces of each of the Patrol Men and he saw his own feelings reflected back at him. Without Solomon, they were finished.
CHAPTER 10
THEY WERE LOST WITHOUT HIM. DALE COULD SEE it in their eyes. Solomon had been their leader and maybe none of them had needed to think for themselves before. He searched one face after another and tried to find one of them who could take charge and tell the rest of them what to do. He felt as lost as they looked.
Behind him, he could hear the zombies moaning. The crack of wood as they tried to break down the door and get into the village hall. If they managed to do that then almost everyone in the village would be killed or turned, it amounted to the same thing. More importantly: Beth would be one of them.
Dale turned back to the Patrol Men. He could see that none of them were going to take charge. But someone had to.
‘Okay listen up,’ he said.
They turned towards him.
‘We’ve got about a thousand mom’s in the marketplace. We’re going to split up and move in on them from all angles.’
He waited for someone to question him. Who was he to take charge of the situation? He was the newest member of the team and mostly unproven. But they were grunts looking for someone to tell them what to do, the idea of questioning an order didn’t seem to occur to them.
‘Anton, Darren, you go through the market and take them from the east. Demetrius, Huey, you go west. Jess, you’re with me.’
They nodded and set off. Dale waited until they were gone before he turned to Jess.
‘Are you sure about this?’ she said.
Dale nodded and then shook his head. ‘I don’t have any other ideas. Do you?’
She shook her head.
He counted to one hundred and then checked his gun was loaded. He saw Jess do the same. Something cracked loudly and for a moment there was silence. Another moment and the moans of the zombies were louder than they had been before.
‘Let’s go,’ Dale said. He didn’t stop to make sure Jessie was following him.
Dale opened fire on the zombies. He forced himself to watch the bullets from his gun tearing through the bodies. He recognised the faces of people who he had called neighbours and friends for the last few weeks and he reminded himself that they were neither of those things anymore. The people who he had known were gone.
Jess was beside him. She seemed to have no trouble shooting people she used to know.
The zombies didn’t come close to them. One by one they fell to the ground. Their heads exploded like rotten apples thrown against a wall. Soon they lay in piles on the ground. Creating a barrier between them. Others tripped over them and hit the ground like sacks of meat.
Arms and legs flailed around. The zombie moans became more urgent. Desperate pleading calls for help. For others to follow them.
Dale emptied one magazine and then another. He swapped them without missing a beat.
They stopped shooting and he led Jessie towards the zombies. He could still hear the occasional moan but for the most part the zombies were silent. He wasn’t convinced that this meant they were finished. Perhaps it was some long dormant survival instinct.
‘Careful,’ Dale warned.
The gunshots in the distance stopped as well.
The light had begun to fade but there was still enough to see by. The ground was carpeted in blood and guts. Pieces of brain matter lay in puddles of unidentifiable liquid.
‘Are they gone?’ Jessie said. ‘Did we get them all?’
Dale held up a hand. He wanted her to be quiet. He wouldn’t be convinced that it was over until they had lit the bonfire and every last one of them was cooking. Maybe then he could start to think about what had happened. How a seemingly ordinary day had turned into this. It seemed like a long shot to pin it all on chance.
‘Get the others,’ Dale said.
‘What are you–‘
‘We’ll need lots of petrol. See what you can do about that.’
‘Sure,’ Jessie said. She didn’t so
und pleased about being ordered around like that but she did what he told her. Another thing he would have to deal with later.
Dale listened to her go. He approached the piles of rotting bodies and kicked them. Nothing moved. In the distance, he could hear a single low moan. He cocked the gun and ran towards it.
A man who he didn’t recognise was laying on the ground. His head had been turned so that it was obviously broken. Blood stained his open mouth and his black marble eyes stared knowingly at Dale even as he tried to grab hold of him.
Dale took his time. The man was no threat. It might be useful for him to see how a zombie worked. He watched the thrashing and struggling creature desperately try to get up and grab hold of him. Laying a few metres behind him was Michael. His body looked withered and used up as if he’d been dead for a very long time.
Seeing Michael reminded him of the bite. Dale turned to look at his arm and it was still there. He wasn’t a zombie and Michael was dead. Before he could think more about it the zombie on the ground lunged towards him.
Dale heard its bones snapping but it managed to get a hand on his leg. He fired the gun and its head exploded, covering him in blood and gore.
‘Is everything alright?’ Demetrius shouted from the market.
Dale raised a hand. ‘Everything’s fine. Just taking care of a few stragglers.’
He saw other faces that he recognised. Thomas, the barman, lay on his back staring at the sky. His flesh barely decomposed. Andrew, Wesley’s secretary, had been torn in half by the gunfire. His blackened eyes still open.
The Patrol Men walked among the dead and then they lit a fire. The smoke and the warmth brought people out of the village hall. Creeping at first and then, as the message got passed around that there was nothing to fear, running.
Dale stood in front of Demetrius and the other Patrol Men. A great fire burned to their right. The villagers of Harmony filled the marketplace with their bodies and mumbled conversation. Wesley cleared his throat and addressed them.