The Undead. The First Seven Days (21 page)

We are both hot by the time we get back to the van. Dave looks a little rosy in the cheeks but I’m melting and sweat is coming off me in buckets. We put two of the shotguns in the rear; the other one and the rifle go in the cabin with us.

I start the engine and pull away. The van has air conditioning and, within minutes, we are enjoying icy cold air, drying our sweat. I want to eat, but my stomach is still gurgling away, so I just drink lots of water instead.
  The shotguns are heavy and cumbersome, the rifle is okay and Dave handles it beautifully, but I won’t be fast enough to keep breaking it open and loading if we get stuck in a group of fast moving undead - there must be a way to carry a shotgun and the axe at the same time. I think of ways to adapt the bag so I can hold one of them, but they are both too long and will fall out.
  I imagine somehow fitting the axe head to the end of the shotgun, so I can fire, then reverse it and chop them. I wonder if anyone has invented one. I could have patented it and made a fortune selling it to the crazy survivalists who kept going on about the end of the world.
  Mind you… there weren’t so crazy were they? Are they feeling self-righteous and pious, walking round their communes, patting each other on the back? Maybe one of them even started it? A mad scientist, a fundamentalist - end of world theorist - doing it on purpose to prove they were right… cleansing the Earth of all the sin, while they sit back and gloat at the genocide they have created.

Fucking fundamentalists.
  They’re just mentalists, no
funda
about it.

We are in a town, I was too busy thinking of my new
shotgunaxe
invention to realise we were out of the country; I was just following the road.
   The town is big and looks a bit grimy and, according to the map, it must be Portsmouth.

I’ve been here a few times; the old part of Portsmouth, with the historic ships, is nice but the rest just looks horrible with old, grey buildings and graffiti everywhere.
  We used to come shopping here and I’ve been for a few nights out with friends and everyone seemed so aggressive and angry: blokes with tattoos and earrings; barely clad women with scraped back hair, big-hooped bangles and mouths like sailors. Portsmouth is a just a small city in the Home Counties and I could never understand why they all tried talking like
mockney
Londoners; walking about with bandy swaggers.
  We keep to the outskirts and use the outer roads to head towards Salisbury. I should have been paying better attention and avoided the city area. We are on a wide road with crappy looking shops on either side; the metal shuttering on some of them has already been forced open or wrenched off. There are windows smashed and debris litters the place. There are people here too, going in and out of the smashed windows, taking armfuls of gear and walking into the next one.
  As we move further into the city, we see more signs of civil breakdown. There are bodies scattered, lying in the road, also abandoned and burnt out cars and vans. It looks like a riot has taken place.
  Some of the bodies are clearly undead, some are not so obvious - and a few look like normal people.
  A scattering of the vehicles we pass are still smouldering with thick, black smoke. The hot summer air stinks of burning rubber and chemicals.
  Dave takes the rifle and pushes in a fresh string of bullets then rams the bolt and breaks the shotgun, loading in two cartridges. I now wish that I had brought the other shotgun in the cabin.
  Places like Portsmouth were always on the brink of civil collapse anyway; hard places full of hard people, and god only knows what they will be like now.
  Dave pulls his
Tesco
fleece out of the bag and puts it on, it’s roasting weather and I can’t understand why he’s doing that. He zips it and then loads more of the ammunition clips into the pockets of the fleece. Next, he takes an empty plastic bag and puts shotgun cartridges into it; he leans over and threads the handles through my belt, tying them off. He makes a small, hand-sized hole in the top of the bag. I look down at the bag and feel for the hole with my left hand.
  We stay silent and look at the carnage around us. We are going much slower now; the road is littered with bodies and objects. There is no sign of any people now; it is just quiet and empty.
  I’m cursing myself for coming this way. There is a concrete footbridge going over the road ahead of us; the debris is stacked either side of the road forming a narrow gap.
  As we pass into the shadow of the bridge, the top comes alive with people leaning down over the barrier: rocks and stones are launched down, thudding into the bonnet. I accelerate and push through the tiny gap and I can hear the sides being scraped by objects as we force the van through. Loud bangs and thumps sound all round the van and I put my foot down, coming out the other side. A few more objects are thrown but bounce away - thankfully, the windscreen is intact.
  I can see young children jeering and waving their arms in the air, as we leave the bridge behind us.
  We need to stay on the main road to go round the city but there is a barricade ahead of us, vehicles have been parked end on end, then more stuff has been piled on top of the vehicles: large refuse wheelie bins; sofas; beds; cabinets and all manner of furniture.
  The barricade is overhead height and there is no gap through. In front of the barricade is a huge crowd of undead; there must thousands. They stretch back well away from the actual barricade and are spilling out round the sides.
  The only choice is to go left, which takes us more into the city centre, even that will be a squeeze though - there is barely enough room between the edge of the crowd and the building line.
  I bring the van to a stop. We are trapped between going back under the bridge and risking the missiles, or going ahead through that lot. The van is strong and they are slow moving undead but if they mass in front of us there will be no way through, and too many to go over. I look back at the bridge and see children spilling down both sides and onto the pavement; they are running towards the van, more missiles in their hands.
  ‘Shit! Look at that lot! Fucking kids.’
  Dave leans forward to peer into the wing mirror on his side, then he grabs the shotgun and is out of the van, moving off to the side.
  ‘You can’t shoot kids…’ I yell after him.
  He raises the shotgun up and aims towards them. If he fires he could kill a child and alert that horde to our presence.
  He stays still, holding the shotgun into his shoulder. I watch the youths slow down, as they get closer, calling out to each other and pointing at Dave. Then, the momentum is gone and they turn round and run back towards the bridge.
  Where are their parents? Why are they out in this, they should be behind that barricade. Someone has built it and I can only guess there is a safe place behind it.
  ‘Dave, there are doors in the building up from the barricade, maybe we can get through?’
  He shakes his head at me.
  ‘We’ll lose the vehicle and the weapons.’
  ‘We can’t stay here, we’ll have to try and get through them quickly.’
  A door opens from a house just a short distance up from the barricade, there is a small, clear area round the door, just a few metres before the closest undead.
  A woman is being pushed out, there are men holding her arms and pushing her from behind, she is screaming and struggling violently, she gets thrown out and sprawls on the ground, then she leaps up and runs back at the door as it closes.
  I can hear her screaming and pounding on the door from here, the closest undead have noticed and are heading towards her. She has no weapons or any way to fight them off.
  ‘Fucking hell, she’ll get torn apart.’
  She is thrashing her arms at the door, screaming and begging to be let back in. I don’t know what she’s done but that is wrong, just plain wrong.
  ‘We can’t just leave her.’
  I put more cartridges into the plastic bag and grab the shotgun. As I get out of the van, I break the shotgun as I walk over, but Dave has already loaded it. I slam the barrel shut and raise the gun to my shoulder.
  ‘Dave, you go for her, I’ll draw them away… oy… over here. Come over here…!’
  I keep bellowing out as Dave loops round behind me, to the right.
  ‘Just don’t shoot me, Mr Howie.’
   As if I would
.

I can’t move left as the massed horde are in that direction and are starting to turn this way.
  Dave has gone right, so I must keep going forward.

Shit! How far away do I have to be before I can shoot them? A shotgun has pellets and they spread, if I shoot now I could hit her.

I stop, unsure of what to do.
  ‘Come right, shoot into the crowd.’
  I move round, following a narrower path than Dave. I keep heading forward but off to the right; some of the undead closest to her are drawing away, heading towards my direction.
  I’m yelling at the girl to stop shouting and be quiet, but she doesn’t hear me. There are still a few near to her, getting closer. She is still banging on the door and screaming, which is drawing their attention.
  ‘STOP SCREAMING. STAY QUIET!’
  A
parade square
voice from Dave. I look over, amazed that such a quiet man can produce such a noise.

It does the job though; she turns quickly and looks to Dave, then me.

I shout over to her: ‘Stay still and be quiet, let me draw them off.’
  She looks terrified and I don’t blame her really. Now, I’m calling out again, and trying to draw them off. Most have followed my voice, but a few are still shuffling ever closer to her, fixed on their prey.
The woman is off to my extreme right; several of the undead have staggered out in front of me, only a few metres away. The rest of the horde is behind them.
  ‘Now… Mr Howie.’
  I pull the first trigger and watch as the first undead is blown away, then I move the barrel slightly and pull the second trigger - an undead is taken off it’s feet, hammering back into more behind it.

I repeat the action that I learnt before: lever; break; cartridges out; cartridges in; closed; raise and fire.

I don’t notice the recoil this time, or the noise. I just see bits of undead body flying off as the pellets strike them at such close range; the effect is devastating.
  I move back and keep drawing them away from the woman, but an undead is suddenly at my right. I reverse the shotgun and slam the butt into his face and he staggers back, as Dave steps behind him and slices through his jugular with a knife. The rifle is on his back, hanging from the strap.
  I repeat the action over and again, clearing space and blowing holes in zombie, undead bodies.
  The horde has reacted to the sound and is turning towards us.

I glance right and can see Dave spinning through the remaining undead who are almost at the woman; his knife slicing necks, severing arteries and spraying bright red blood across the pavement. I reload and notice that the cartridges are the same colour as the blood.
    I keep firing into the crowd.

An undead goes down just as I fire; the pellets spread out and knock several undead over behind him.

Beautiful.
Dave is at the woman now and is saying something to her, but she seems frozen to the spot, looking down at the bloody bodies lying at her feet.
  I start over to their location, treading carefully over the bodies, then the door opens and a man reaches out and grabs the woman by the hair, pulling her back in.
  Dave lunges forward as the door is pushed closed, he wedges himself into the gap and forces his way through. The door slams shut behind him.

Shit.
  ‘Dave, where are you… what is going on?’
   Some of the horde are getting closer and I reload and fire at them, sending them spinning away. I get to the door and use the butt to hammer at it:
  ‘Dave! Open up!’
  A woman screams from inside, then I hear muffled thuds and male voices yelling. It goes quiet and the door opens.
  The room looks like it was a front room; it has been stripped of furniture. There are several adult males lying on the ground with their throats cut, large pools of blood already forming.
  ‘What the fuck?’
  ‘They tried to grab me.’
  ‘Jesus, are they all dead?’
  He calmly looks around at the bodies.
  ‘Yes.’
  The woman is cowering at the far end of the room, her hands covering her face. Another door opens and she runs out of the room we are in, the door slams behind her, leaving us alone, with several dead bodies.
  ‘Jesus… Dave, did you have to kill all of them?’
  ‘They kept coming at me.’
  The horde are only metres away now.
  ‘Fuck it, lets go.’
  We start moving back to the van, just as it starts reversing away from us.
  ‘Fuck! I left the keys in it.’
  The van stops and I can hear the engine being re-started, the little fuckers are trying to steal it and have stalled it. Thieving little shits.
  We run forward and I’m shouting for them to stop. The van starts pulling back again. There are kids on the bridge, waving and cheering.
  Dave stops and raises the rifle. In one fluid movement, he fires at the van and my heart misses a beat, thinking he has shot a child - a thieving little shit, but still a child.
  The front drivers’ side tyre blows out and the van drops down a little. He then slams the bolt and shoots again - the passenger side tyre deflates. The van then stops and three children get out and start running away.