The Undead Day Eighteen

by RR Haywood

  ‘And open to reason is he?’

  ‘Oh gosh yes, very reasonable man. Impetuous but catch him at the right moment and he will listen. May I ask why?’

  ‘I should perhaps explain to you first who I am and then you can guide me on how best to broach the er, the subject matter with this Mr Howie.’

  ‘I would be glad to help,’ Reginald says feeling a prickle of pride at the thought of being confided in. ‘Oh hang on,’ he adds leaning out of the window, ‘could you slow down for a minute? I think we’ve got them all…yes, can’t see a single one now.’

  ‘Really?’ Neal asks bringing the fire engine to a stop, ‘that would be interesting,’ he opens the door to lean out trying to see the whole of the road behind them, ‘you know, I think you might be right, Reginald.’

  ‘Yes, I think I am. I can’t see any.’

  ‘Nor me. Well would you look at that,’ he says smiling, ‘we appear to have been victorious.’

  ‘Victorious indeed,’ Reginald replies, ‘I rather think we can safely return to the farmhouse and partake in a cup of Camomile tea. Do you like Camomile tea?’

  ‘Prefer Darjeeling if I am honest.’

  ‘We have Darjeeling.’

  ‘Do you? That would be nice. I have Earl Grey in my bags somewhere.’

  ‘Oh an Earl Grey would be splendid.’

  ‘We can trade,’ Neal laughs, ‘a cup of Darjeeling for a cup of Earl Grey.’

  ‘I should get that drone back in the air and find them an escape route. That is if they haven’t killed them all by now. Which they most probably have.’

  ‘Which way from here?’

  ‘Ah now, I think we stay on this road which takes us back to the roundabout and from there we can find our way back to the farmhouse. Do you have a base you work from?’

  ‘Me?’ Neal asks, ‘I did but that’s some distance away now. No I am now nomadic as it were while I undertake my quest.’

  ‘Quest? That does sound interesting.’

  ‘Yes I was about to explain. It is a long story but one of vital importance and you would not believe the relief I feel at having found someone I can tell it to. I have had this burden on my shoulders for a long time now.’

  ‘Gosh,’ Reginald says sadly, ‘hmmm? What was that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said something.’

  ‘No. No I don’t think so. I said I felt a great burden at…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Reginald? Are you okay?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said are you okay?’

  ‘Pack.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said pack. You just said it. The word pack.’

  ‘PACK.’

  ‘What? Why are you shouting pack?’

  ‘I do apologise, what did you say?’ Reginald says shaking his head at the fleeting image that swept through it, ‘oh dear, I think I came over all funny.’

  ‘Must be the heat,’ Neal says warily, staring at the strange expression on Reginald’s face.

  ‘Little one? What little one?’

  ‘Reginald? Are you becoming delirious?’

  ‘What? Who is delirious?’

  ‘I think you need some water and some shade.’

  ‘WE ARE PACK.’

  ‘Good Lord!’

  ‘PACK. LITTLE ONE.’

  ‘Reginald?’ Neal says pressing the brake in alarm at the booming shouts and staring in horror as Reginald twitches to stare round then stares hard into the sky, ‘Reginald? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Go back,’ Reginald says quietly, ‘we have to go back. Right now.’

  ‘Now? Back?’

  ‘Go back. Pack. Pack fight. GO BACK.’

  ‘You really want to go back?’ Neal asks gently thinking the man has lost his mind.

  Little one. Pain. Images and feelings whirl through Reginald’s mind with an instinct to be pack. Be together. Not words or thoughts but just the essence of the suggestion as sure as day follows night. ‘Go back…we have to go back…’

  ‘To the square?’ Neal asks.

  ‘GO BACK,’ Reginald roars. WE ARE PACK. WE FIGHT. PACK FIGHT. HOLD ON.

  ‘Reginald, I really think you should stop and rest for a moment.’

  ‘Go the fuck back,’ Reginald snarls lifting his rifle to aim across the narrow gap between them. Pack fight. Little one. Pain. Fight. Pack leader. Be pack.

  ‘Of course,’ Neal gibbers turning the wheel to bring the big truck round to face the way they came.

  ‘Faster…go faster…’ Reginald gasps, ‘they’re in trouble…no…I don’t know. Please go back.’

  ‘I am!’

  ‘Faster. We must go faster. PACK. FIGHT. MOVE…’

  ‘Reginald? What are you saying?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Reginald wails, ‘but we have to go now…go faster…’

  ‘We are but please don’t point that thing at me.’

  ‘What? Oh gosh I am so very sorry.’

  ‘Please tell me what’s wrong with you?’

  ‘JUST FUCKING MOVE,’ Reginald explodes slamming his hand on the dashboard and filled with a desire to be there right now. He has to be there. They have to move. The pack move. The pack fight. There is pain. Protect the little ones.

  Neal blanches back from the ferocity of the words being bellowed from such a polite and well-spoken man. His whole manner now animated and consumed with burning energy that pulses and blazes from his eyes. The speed increases as Reginald beats the dashboard over and over with a fist slamming down.

  ‘Little one…pack…pain…GO FASTER…we fight…’

  Neal wants to do anything other than go faster but he does. He pushes his foot down staring at the road ahead and glancing over at Reginald bouncing frantic on the seat almost frothing at the mouth. They go back over the bodies they crushed like a trail of breadcrumbs as Reginald’s head fills with images of blood spraying and he bites down as though he can taste it. His hands claw. He snarls feeling the pack fight and the unquestionable fact that he should be there. When he starts kicking the inside of the foot well then stamping down while gnashing his teeth Neal starts and whimpers in fear snatching looks at the assault rifle gripped in Reginald’s hand.

  ‘Where?’ Neal asks barely a whisper.

  ‘WE ARE PACK,’ Reginald screams lifting his head high making the veins in his neck bulge clear through the skin. ‘The square…get to the square…’

  ‘Reginald, there are too many,’ Neal swallows the fear down and grips the wheel.

  The pain. The little one lives. Infected. Bad blood. End it. Dead. Pain gone. More little ones. Save them. The urgency grows. There is no question. Only certainty of doing what must be done.

  ‘We will go through the square,’ he says with such ruthless cold precision that it sends a shiver down Neal’s spine.

  *

  Compression. They are so many and they close in so hard that we are forced back but I still shout for everyone to get out. Staying here is no longer an option.

  From that street door the survivors flow out to see a darkening sky and into a wall of heat and undead voices howling to feast on their flesh. We take our axes back and Dave draws his knives. Rifles fire and the GPMG clicks empty but we gather those screaming terrified people into one big group herded together by Major Hawthorn and we start moving north to the closest exit out of the square and the hope there might be a petrol station. It’s the tiniest glimmer of hope that we can find something to use but it’s all we have.

  So we fight. We kill and drop them but they are so many that we will surely tire and fade before they even begin to run out of resources but that sound of the little girl screaming in pain rings true in our ears and drives us on. All of us. Thirteen that slash, stab and bite. We hack for the horror we’ve brought here and in some sickening cruel way we try to make amends.

  Paula and Marcy with us. Fighti
ng side by side and flanked by me and Roy. Ranged round in a circle of protectiveness to those behind and in that midst I can hear the voices of Major Hawthorn and Captain Thompson trying to keep them in order. They are old but they do not panic. In the face of the enemy they hold true and steady and when I turn on the spin I see Thompson lashing out with a meat cleaver and Major Hawthorn stabbing a female in the guts before kicking her legs out and rushing on with his group.

  Step by step we start to make progress but it’s painfully slow and our few have to be everywhere to keep that large circle intact and a big dog runs relentlessly round and through the children working tirelessly to herd them on and keep the things at bay.

  That compression grows and I see Mo go down from a flailing hand of a big male that gets slammed aside then cleaved in half by Blinky who drops a hand and wrenches the lad back to his feet. He doesn’t flinch, not a flicker of recognition of the pain that must be coming from the welt across his face but he’s straight back in stabbing frenzied and hard. Charlie staggers into me and I spin round using my back to protect her from the onslaught of infected coming at her. Teeth and nails bite and rake into me until Clarence batters them away with his sledgehammer. I push Charlie away shoving her towards the survivors but with a snarling fuck you she runs past me and lays straight back in. Blowers and Cookey work to get either side of her but she’s so hell-bent on killing that she doesn’t realise. We all are. That girl. That awful noise. The sheer brutal sadness of it. We cannot rid that sound from our ears or take away the knowledge from our minds of what happened to her. I shot her too. Through the head at point blank range from the instinct of a dog telling me her blood was now bad and that projected instinctual mind of Meredith lingers even now.

  The understanding to focus. The principle of pack. The unity of fighting intrinsically. Don’t think. Do. Be pack. Fluid. From the heart. Fight now. Fight. Be leader. The big man needs help. Be leader. Without seeing I turn to strike into the back of a female lunging to bite Clarence’s legs. Don’t think. Sense. Feel it. From the heart. Pack.

  Marcy whips round stabbing one in the neck that was going for Paula. Roy stabs backwards with his sword opening the guts of a male going for Nick. Mo drops and sticks his leg out tripping one that is killed by Blinky and in turn she spins round Mo’s back cleaving up into the groin as Mo springs up and pulls her back an inch so Dave can slice the throat of the one about to bite her and I go in killing two that were going for Dave and behind me Charlie kills the one that took my space in an effort to get Marcy.

  Little ones. This side. Three of us break away sprinting round the back of the survivors to take out the few that slipped round in the chaos of the battle. Don’t think. Do. I run with Marcy and Roy down the side of the group killing and hacking the infected down. Dave goes the other direction coming round the front until we meet halfway amidst a sea of corpses.

  Back now. The pack leader female fights unprotected. We rush to aid Paula but see the others already doing it. All of them. Clarence, Blinky, Mo, Nick, Blowers, Cookey and Charlie all moving fluid to encircle Paula. Be pack. You learn as pups. Don’t think. Do.

  A chastisement and a sensation of wisdom at being taught and shown. Of allowing the heart to open and feel instead of see. Wolves run and hunt with perfect harmony at speeds that defy what they should be able to do. Turning on the spot and sensing the movements of each other but that sense doesn't just come from sight, hearing and smell but from knowing each other. Eating together. Sleeping together. Living together. Shitting, crying, learning, laughing, playing, bleeding. This is pack. We are pack.

  The one who laughs. Cookey being charged down but Blowers and Nick are there before the five get more than a step closer to him. The one who farts and blinks. I shoulder Blinky aside and slice up taking the arm off that was about to rake her face. We flow round each other taking gaps that one just left and in turn the space we vacated is filled as those sensations flow through us. Better. Faster now. Little ones.

  All for them. All for the little ones and that sensation of love extended is the strongest of all and that is Meredith’s sole focus. That the pack be strong to protect the little ones. Yes. Little ones. They cannot fight. We fight. Pups. Protect. Future.

  There it is. We see it. Without them there is nothing. Without our young there is no hope, no species, no life, no worth, no value. All is empty and gone. For them. Not for us. Now you see. Now you understand. Pack.

  The speed of it. The sheer unadulterated speed we gain from that single conscious streaming ideology pushed into our small hive mind brought about by something in our blood but it changes the way we are and the way we fight. It changes our perception of us, of the world and all that is in it. What we are singularly is nothing. What we are in unity is everything. We took the good times and fucked them away. We took peace when it meant nothing to us. We did not have respect for pack or for our little ones. We had no vision of the future. We worked when we should have played. We ate when we should have exercised. We slept too long. We were not watchful or alert. We coveted our gains when in fact we needed nothing more than food that day and shelter that night.

  It becomes beautiful. We don’t relish in the act of killing but seek the harmony of working together only it’s not work. It’s something else that I don’t have words for. Not thinking or reacting but being. As the infected act as one so we too start to learn and open our minds and feel the presence of each other.

  Our spatial awareness increases. Our reactional speed at gauging where this one will go and what direction the ones behind him will take when he is cut down. Whole actions broken into tiny movements of component parts. Blinky can kill. She is strong and fast. She is brutally violent. We all are. Clarence is strong. Mo and Dave are staggeringly fast. Charlie thinks. Paula and Marcy are wild. We each of us can kill but what we can do singularly has no relationship with what we can do in unity as pack.

  Blinky strikes left slashing her axe and sending an undead falling back who finds his head removed by Nick spinning on the spot and as Blinky extended to strike out so Clarence lashes forward driving two more back who get their throats cut by Dave and Mo. As those two fall they are used as a springboard by Meredith launching high to clamp her teeth on the throat of an infected battered into position by Roy who then turns away as Charlie rushes past him stabbing hard into the chest and dropping low to give Cookey space to take the head off. Behind Cookey Marcy darts and drives the point of her blade up into the mouth of a male and behind Marcy I slam three away into the axe blade of Blowers striking them down as Paula reaches round him to drive the point of her own blade into the neck of another. I snatch a hand out giving leverage to Marcy who uses my body to right herself and launch past me. Mo ducks. Dave rolls across his back slashing with a blur of motion then he drops to a crouch as Mo launches himself from Dave’s back to gain height to kill the tall one punched round by Blowers. Paula opens her legs to let Meredith rush through who bites up into the groin of a male who finds his bollocks ripped off. Meredith low. I go over her. Clarence behind me. Charlie rolls round Clarence giving space to Roy so he can slash out with his sword. Flow and move. Feel. Instinct. Faster now. They attack harder. Pack fight.

  We snarl and growl but not a word comes from us. Not a warning is yelled because the time it takes to see the danger, form the word, gain the air and project that utterance is too long. Through, round, over and under each other. We twirl and circle and lunge but each movement is nothing more than it needs to be and for a few perfect minutes we hold our own. Thirteen against god knows how many but fuck we hold them off. We do not gain ground but we do not yield it either. We pit hive mind against hive mind and ours is faster, stronger, more aligned and in tune as we use what skills we have learnt.

  But they have more than us. So many more. More than we can fight and the body can only work so hard for so long before the fatigue starts to show.

  NO. FIGHT.

  We rally and find reserves to keep going. Digging deeper into our h
earts and souls. Meredith hurts from nearly every part of her body but she ignores it. It is not important. Our pain is not important. Future. Little ones.

  Gasping for air. Sweat burning our eyes as the blood sprays to blind us. Gore in our mouths and the bile rises from the expenditure of energy. Dehydrated. Exhausted and now giving ground. Beaten back. We fight and flow over and through one another but the survivors cannot move ahead now because the infected have worked to circle on three sides pressing us against the building line.

  Hold on. Fight.

  We do. For her we do. We drain but find the will to keep going as every muscle and sinew screams in pain and burns from lactic acid.

  Hold on. More coming.

  There are no more. We’re it. This. Just us and as quick as that thought forms so the infected press forward splitting us apart and I fall down on my back seeing nothing but legs and bodies over me and now I find my voice to cry out in warning but I feel a relief. A knowing that something comes. Something big that has fresh strength. I gain the essence of temper and fury and speed and muscles that ripple and bunch glistening golden with sweat. Of height and power and by fuck there she is. A glorious thing to behold and for a second I do not move but stare up in awe and if I ever thought Clarence was strong, she is stronger. This is strength coupled with grace and agility. She is Dave and Clarence together and rears up on hind legs spinning round with a snorting furious noise and eyes blazing pure fucking hatred. When she lands those front legs down so the weight of her kills those she lands on. Round she goes on the spot and now I see those golden muscles rippling with power as her back end slams them aside as if they were made of nothing.

  She is scared and terrified but more than that she is foul tempered with anger. The smells of the death here offends her nose. She should give flight and run but the pull to be here is too strong so here she will be. She bucks and kicks out with her back legs with such power she launches three fully grown men off their feet and back into several more that get knocked down.