Dead Ahead (13 page)

“No....” Jon coughed out. Michaels moved closer.

“Never....” he spluttered through bleeding lips as the head swung closer still.

“Piss off to hell!” Jon spat the words with such ferocity that he sprayed Michaels’ face with blood. The pompous bastard leapt back aghast.

Michaels’ eyes quickly burned with rage as he swung the head back over his shoulder and down between Jon’s legs.

Jon tried to crumple under the pain, but the ropes held him there. Again Michaels swung the head, sending crashing between his legs. Jon felt like he was about to pass out. A third time the head was swung and when it connected it stayed there. The head had bitten down on part of Jon’s anatomy; but he was in too much pain to know which part. He could hear the soldiers around him whooping and laughing as Michaels tugged on its hair.

“I have heard of giving head, but this is ridiculous....” shouted one of the soldiers, sending the rest of them into fits of laughter. Jon felt like he was about to throw up.

Michaels pulled out his pistol, fired a round into the head and crouched down beside him.

“Hmm, no blood! You appear to be quite the lucky man, Fosters.” He said, inspecting the heads mouth. “We will find your daughter, Fosters,” he added, dropping the head and grabbing Jon by the chin, “and when we do you are going to know the true meaning of losing it all!” His tone was disgustingly smooth and calm, like a buttered slug; bile rose in Jon’s throat

Jon held Michaels’ gaze as long as he could but the immense pain he was under forced him to close his weeping eyes. “Bag him up and throw him in the back of the truck.” He heard Michaels command as he walked away. True to form, the soldiers did as they were told. Jon was cut down and rebound, he then had his head covered with a dirty sack, which smelled like it had been used as an animals bedding. He was thrown into the truck, but not before he heard some of the conversation between Michaels and Knox.

“Do you want the boys ready to head out, Sir?”

“Within the next ten minutes, Staff Sergeant!”

“Where are we headed for sir?”

“In the long run.... Sellafield. But we need equipment first. We will be headed north, back to where I was stationed before I.... before the bunker, hopefully there will be something left there that we can use.”

Jon’s heart sank as he lay uncomfortably on the truck bed floor. Michaels had guessed their plan. ‘
But why then would he keep beating me?’
he thought to himself, ‘
You’re trying to break me, Michaels! But I won’t let you…!’

It wasn’t long before the angry kicking feet of the soldiers returned to the back of the truck, laughing and joking as they casually trampled Jon’s ankles, legs and fingers.

“Should have seen it, man! Knox kicked him right in the back of the head, then he had him round the throat! Coleman shit himself!”

“I’d shit maself too if Knox had hold of me!”

“That’s cause you are a pussy though!”

“Fuck off! I’d like to see you go toe to toe with Knox!”

“No fuckin’ problem! So long as I got me rifle an’ he’s asleep! Ha!”

“Haha! Even then you’d think twice!”

“Haha! Give us a slug of that water, Harper!”

“Fuck off! Get your fuckin’ own! Coleman’s got them.”

“Oi, Bitch! Chuck us some water!”

“Yeah, Bitch...! Some here too!”

“Fuck me, is that food?”

“Grubs up, Boys!”

“Want some, Sir?”

“I’ll eat later, we’re movin’ out!” said Knox in his distinctive bellow.

“Some for Emi.... the Major, Sir?”

“He has more refined tastes than us common grunts, Bolton!”

“I’ll have the Majors share, Cookie!”

“You’ll have the end of my cock, Deane. Shut up!”

“Harper!”

“Yes, Sir?”

“As we are denied the pleasure of Sergeant Rigby’s company, you will be acting sergeant. Until we find the cunt and kill him, that is!”

“Sir Yes, Sir!”

“Hear that you bunch of lousy bastards? You’re
all
my bitches now!”

“Fuck you, Harper!”

“That’s fuck you, Harper, Sir!”

As the truck pulled away from the barn that they had taken shelter in, Jon could smell the strong scent of the food through the mustiness of the sack, making his stomach growl in complaint. His mouth was so dry he could feel the individual taste buds on his tongue scraping against the roof of his mouth.

Eventually, despite his thirst and hunger, despite the soldiers laughing and joking, Jon fell into a blissful sleep, devoid of thought.

Jon awoke to the sound of what he thought was someone sawing wood. He felt a great weight upon his stomach. The sound of sawing wood turned out to be one of the soldiers snoring. Was someone using him as a pillow? Jon tried to turn over but received two sharp jabs for his efforts. Even with his head sack on Jon could tell that it was night. He heard the sound of one of the soldiers moaning.

“Fucking hell, Cookie! What did you put in that? My guts are churning here!”

“I didn’t put nothing in that won’t kill you!”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean? I’m dying here!”

“Man up would you, no one else is complaining!”

“Fuck! I think I just shit myself!”

“What? Oi! The fuck are you doing?”

“I gotta take a shit! Hold on to me while I hang my arse over the tailgate!”

“Fucking hell, Gordo! That’s nasty!”

“It’s you what done this to me! Probably cooked us an old mangy dog or somethin’!

Hold on tight.... Oh-h-h-h-h-h...!”

It sounded like someone was tearing a sheet of thick cardboard in half. Other soldiers started to wake to the awful sound and smell of the incident. Splutters and spurts continued to sound from the back of the truck.

“Fucking me! What the fuck is that smell?”

“Are you done yet Gordo?”

“Naw! It won’t stop! Fuck, it hurts! Bllluuuggghhhh!”

“What the fuck was that?”

“Did you just fucking puke on me, Gordo?”

“I’m sorry! I can’t.... Bllluuuggghhh!”

“Someone get a light!”

The next few moments went as a blur, even for Jon, he couldn’t tell which soldiers were shouting, what started as almost jovial quickly fell into panic.

“What the fuck? That’s blood, that’s fucking blood! What the hell is that hanging out his arse? It’s his guts man! Someone pick him up! I ain’t touching him! That’s a fucking order! Fuck you, Harper! Bllluuuggghhh! Fuck! Cookie, man, your face! What the fuck’s he doing now? He’s having some kind of seizure! The fuck?”

Silence!

“Is he dead...?”

“What the fuck did you feed him, Cookie?”

“He ate what I ate, what we all ate!”

In the chaos Jon had managed to wriggle partially free from the sack over his head. He sat up, back against the bulkhead. In the unsteady torchlight Jon could see the man, Gordo, laid in a puddle of his own blood and faeces, twitching while the other soldiers stared at him in shock.

Jon came to a sudden realisation. “That isn’t food poisoning! That’s infection! Get him out, get him out, now!” But it was too late. As the soldiers turned to Jon, some in shock, some in disgust at his being free from his bonds,

Gordo rose. He launched himself at one of the soldiers like a rabid animal, sending both of them tumbling to the ground. Jon could see them by the light of a dropped torch, beneath the seating that lined the back of the truck, Gordo had his teeth clamped over the soldier’s nose and eye; with a sickening crunch he bit down making the soldier scream in the high pitch manner that only great pain can create. Gordo quickly swallowed his spoils and went in for more.

The back of the truck was in chaos, soldiers were desperately firing shots into Gordo’s body but none of them could reach his head as it went back for more. Grabbing hold of his victims hair and jaw, Gordo’s lips curled round a frantically roving eye which he had peeled the skin away from with his first bite. Jon saw the strong neck muscles tighten and a tenacious scowl form on Gordo’s face as he sucked on the eyeball pulling it free from its socket, popping it between his teeth and sending creamy pink fluid dribbling down his chin.

The victim screamed.

Not a scream of terror this time, a scream of rage, of hate, of vengeance. He managed to wriggle free of Gordo’s grip and get on top of him, oblivious to the bites and scratches he was receiving for his efforts, he picked up one of the metal ammo boxes that had been strewn across the truck floor in the panic and slammed it down on Gordo’s head with both hands, he slammed it down again and again, the head began to cave in slowly with each impact, still it clawed and gnashed at him, slowly now as Gordo’s face caved in on its self. One last time the victim slammed the ammo box into the face, and left it there.

“Fucking hell Cookie! You alright?”

Cookie just sat there atop of the dead body just staring at it, he pulled the ammo box from the head, put it down beside him and lifted a hand to his face, covering his missing eye. His back arched as he threw up all down his front, chunks of his dinner rolled down his camouflage jacket and on to the corpse. He had both hands to his face now. It looked like he was crying.

“It’s alright, Cookie! It’s over now, let’s get you cleaned up.”

But Cookie wasn’t crying. He was twitching!

“He’s spazing out!” shouted one of the soldiers, taking a step back.

Cookie dove dead first into the corpse, gorging himself on the contorted mess he had made of Gordo’s head, he pushed his fingers deep into the shattered scull and scooped out a large handful of brain, stuffing it quickly into his mouth.

‘Bang!’             

A single shot was fired and Cookies brains splattered up the aisle. Jon hadn’t even noticed that the truck had stopped. Knox’s intimidating figure loomed over them.

“What in the world of fuck happened in here?”

His shouts were met with stunned silence

“Sergeant! Report!” All heads turned to Harper.

“Uh.... Fuck! Uh....” Harper stammered “It was Gordon, Sir! He was sick, he shat out the back and he turned, Sir. Turned into one of them zombies! Then Cookie got bit and turned!”

“Fuck sake! Dump the bodies and throw some water over this place, it fuckin’ stinks! And cover that cunt’s head up!” Knox said pointing to Jon.

The soldiers jumped into action, Harper designated tasks then moved in Jon’s direction.

The last thing Jon saw that night was Harper’s boot heading towards his head.

Chapter

11

Fear Won

Billy couldn’t have been happier to see Penrith disappearing in his rear view mirror; the town that had born and raised him had turned into a living hell. People were actually eating each other! What the fuck? He patted the blood stained crow bar that sat in the door pocket beside him, checking it was still there for his own comfort.

He had tried to get away via the M6; that had been a mistake, it was jam packed and the returned (that’s what the radio had called them) were tearing people out of their cars and chewing them up right before his eyes. Then he had tried the A66 towards Cockermouth and the coast; that had proved to be equally as bad, fewer of the returned but the traffic was just as bad, people were wandering around their cars with their guts hanging out, faces all torn up, it was disgusting.

That’s when he had cut down to the A592, down the Ullswater. His two litre diesel engine pulled him swiftly past the majestic scenery of the lake to his left and the trees and fields to his right, swans still swam and ducks played in the water, oblivious to the horrors around them. As beautiful as the journey was, the road was far from empty, plenty of people had decided on the same route as him in the end, just not many of them had made it this far. There were remnants of people all along the road, some being chased through fields, cars crashed and abandoned all along the way. He couldn’t understand why people had been stopping. Of course, they didn’t all have a vehicle as good for knocking people down as Billy had, but that was no excuse for idiocy.

But then, there were many levels of idiocy, like not putting enough diesel in your bloody car. How long had he been driving around for? Surely he couldn’t have used a quarter of a tank already, well, just under a quarter; it didn’t matter. There is a petrol station in Glenridding that he had used plenty of times while travelling this road; even if there is a large column of ominous looking black smoke rising from that direction.

Luckily the smoke was being blown away from him as he approached the village, just in time too; his petrol light had come on a few miles back. Apart for the smoke the town was strangely quiet. No people running. No screaming. No returned. He crept slowly through the village and pulled up next to the petrol pumps. Still there was no one there.

Billy tentatively stepped out of his pickup, leaving the door open just in case. He felt a gentle tug of the cord attaching his keys to his belt, reminding him to take them out of the ignition and then opened the petrol cap, keeping it in his hand instead of placing it on top of the pump as he usually did; he slid in the nozzle and pulled the lever.

Nothing....

Shit! What was he going to do now? There are still plenty of cars around here. Maybe he could siphon some diesel out of them?

Billy heard a scream from behind him.

“BUUURN!”

He turned to see a man running at him carrying what looked like a large set of hedge trimmers.

Billy panicked. He turned and ran for the open door to his pickup, but he forgot about the petrol pump hose behind him, it caught him just below the waist flipping him head over heels. A sharp pain ran up his right arm as he landed and there was a loud crack, he wasn’t sure if it was his hand or his head that had made the sound as he landed.

The world spun. His head ached. He couldn’t hear anything but that god awful noise. What the hell was it? It sounded like an engine. Vision returned to see the cutter blades of the trimmers being swung down towards his head. He slid himself to the right; it missed his head by inches and connected with his shoulder. Chunks of flesh and blood sprayed all around him as the sliding blades bit into his arm. Billy screamed and tried to pull away, but it felt like his arm was trapped under something. Pain surged through his shoulder, but he kept on pulling until finally he slid away to the side clutching the stump where his arm had been.

“Demons must burn!” The man shouted as Billy rolled over and on to his knees. It was over now. The man held the engine aloft in both hands, ready to drop it down on Billy’s head. He looked up at the man’s crazed eyes and tried to dig deep to find something to say, anything to stop that blade from hitting him again.

“I’m not......”

One of the returned burst through from behind the back of the pickup taking the psycho completely off of his feet and from under the still sliding blades of the cutters. Billy tried to catch it as it dropped but his right arm snagged on something as he tried to raise it, the left arm simply wasn’t there at all. It fell, the engine part landing on the ground and it stood there for a second before tipping slowly towards him. He could do nothing as the blades fell onto his protruding gut; the beer belly that he had been so proud of just days ago was torn to shreds as he fell backwards.

A grotesque salivating face appeared above Billy as he lay there, bleeding out.

_________________________

     Dawn was breaking as they trudged on up the hillside. Caleb had never felt so tired. He looked to the boy, seeing the weariness behind his bloodshot eyes. Even frank was flagging, the excitement of the nights fighting finally wearing off. Caleb tried to concentrate simply on putting one foot in front of the other for the mean time, though with every footfall he wanted to drop to the ground.

As they crested the hill, Caleb looked to each of them; they both nodded and dropped their packs.

It was a good hill to rest on, the day was already looking to be clear skied, which meant it was going to be all too hot for them, but for now it was nice and cool in the rising sun. Caleb could see for miles around, it was truly a spectacular view; he could see deep into the valley below, barely making out the road that ran trough it where they had attempted to spend the night. On the other side of the hill it dipped sharply, showing a large loch. No. A lake, they were in the lake country now. It reminded Caleb of the lochs of Scotland where he had spent a small part of his childhood. Before he had time to start reminiscing a plan began to form in his head.

“Hey, guys!” He turned around to see both of them sprawled out on the ground, fast asleep. “Guess I will take first watch then?” he said sarcastically to himself.

Caleb spent the next few hours staring down at the lake below, the sunlight catching the ripples on its surface; it was a large L shape with a fair sized town on the right hand side, plenty big enough for there to be boats somewhere down there. He looked back down at the map, tracing his finger over the route he hoped to take. He heard footsteps behind him.

“Awright, mate?” unfortunately it was Frank, “Quite a sight ain’t it?”

Caleb just grunted in response.

“What you workin’ on there?” Frank seemed intent on getting a conversation out of him.

“I’m working on a way to get us to Kendal without having to drive or walk!”

“How we gonna do that, cycle?”

“Naw! Though that’s no a bad idea, put that one in the bank. I plan to go by river!”

“River...? You mean, nick a boat?”

“Aye!” Caleb said with a smile, “My parents’ house is just by the river that runs through Kendal. We can nick a boat from the lake down there. The problem is; the river we need to be on isn’t big enough for a boat till about thirty miles from here! That’s what’s been busting my balls!”

Frank looked to the sky for a second, “Can’t we just drive to the river with a boat on a trailer?

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve been trying to think of a way around.”

“I’m not sure there is a way round it, mate”

“We will create quite a following! And we will need something big, a four by four; we have a few hills to get over to get to the river.”

“But can’t just drive the truck into the river head first to float the boat?”

Caleb thought about it for a second, “Yeah...! Fuck the truck and float the boat?”

Frank looked to the sky again then smiled, “Fuck the truck and float the boat!”

Caleb tried to sleep but his mind wouldn’t let him. He had dozed off a couple of times only to wake with a start and begin asking himself the same set of questions over and over again. Why was he leading them all to Kendal? What did he hope to find there? What were the chances of his parents still being alive? And if they were, why would they stay at home?

Home...?

Was that all he was looking for? How can it even be home now?

It was just somewhere to go, something to aim for. What would they do after they got there and had to leave? North...? South...? Did it matter...?

Frank mumbled something to himself in the background.

‘What are we going to do about him?’
Caleb thought, ‘
Maybe we will get lucky and he will get bit. Naw, I can’t wish that on anyone! He’s not that bad, a bit of a liability at times, but not that bad.

‘What was that? Did he say something about his army?’

Fucking nutter…!’
He chuckled to himself before dozing off again.

Bang!

Caleb leapt out of his skin, rolled over grabbing his Naginata and threw himself to his feet in a crouched stance, blade high above his head.

“Oh, sorry mate; didn’t mean to wake you!” Frank said looking over to him. “Was just showing the lad here how to fire a pistol!”

“Fuck sake Frank! I just about shat myself there!”

“Sorry, Dad...!”

“It’s fine, it’s fine!” Caleb looked up at the sun, “We should be heading off anyway. Let’s hope that shot doesn’t send the whole town down there up here to meet us! Did you tell the boy about the plan?”

“Fuck the truck and float the boat?” The boy asked.

“That’s the one!” Caleb said with a smile. “We should probably try sweeping round the town and approaching from the south, there doesn’t seem to be quite so many houses that side of the lake, plus, we will want to be heading south quickly, the fewer infected we pass the better!”

“Good plan my man!” Frank said, “We made some scran, you want something to eat before we head off?”

“I’ll eat on the way, its best we set off now!”

The hill was steeper than it had looked from the top. Caleb struggled to keep his footing as they made their way down, finding that a sidestepping zigzag movement worked best as he lead them down. Their decent took them a lot longer than expected; it was well into mid-day by the time they reached the first of the houses surrounding the lake. They gave each house and farm as wide a berth as they could on their approach, skulking behind hedgerows and darting across roads in effort not to be seen. Finally, they made it to the water’s edge on the south bank of the lake.

“Well there seems to be plenty of boats.” Frank said from behind a rock as he pointed his rifle at the lake. “Which one do you fancy?”

“We don’t want one that’s in the water, Frank. We need one on dry land. Ideally we need to find one on a trailer, and nothing too big, just a little row boat.”

“Gotcha...! We move in then!”

Caleb could see the eagerness in Frank’s eyes as he looked towards the houses, his longing for battle. As Frank went to move Caleb put his hand on Frank’s shoulder.

“Look, Frank,” Caleb said, “The whole point in this mission is
stealth
. We need to sneak in there, find the boat and trailer, hook it up to a large off road vehicle, quietly, then and only then do we make any noise. If you fire a single shot we will have the whole town down on our heads!”

Frank looked at him like he wasn’t saying anything that Frank didn’t already know.” said, “Ok, Buddy!” and darted off making far too much noise.

Caleb just shook his head and looked to the boy. “You ready for this?” he asked.

“Sure!” The boy hefted his axe.

“Good! Stay behind me!”

They scurried from driveway to driveway, hiding behind walls and hedges, the town barely looked as if anything had happened; cars still lined the street, bins were out, ready to be collected, but the strangest thing of all is that there were no infected, no husks, nothing. Slowly they stopped stooping as they jogged, stopped squatting quite as low as they hid behind the cars. Caleb found himself casually walking towards the centre of town.

As they approached the village green Caleb noticed a large black patch on the ground, he held his hand up to stop the others, he went in to investigate. As he drew closer the twisted shapes became more obvious to him. Blackened bones, twisted by intense heat, protruded from the ashes. The empty eye sockets of shattered sculls stared back at him as he worked his way around the fire pit.

A slight breeze swirled the black ashes around Caleb’s feet and up into the air, He felt sickened as some of it caught in his throat. The day was warm and dry again, it always seemed to warm and dry now. Was it the effects of mankind’s demise? No more car exhausts or factories pumping smoke out into the atmosphere. And if so, was it truly the end? Every city in every country wiped out by the Infected? That would mean a lot of zombies to kill!