The Undead. The First Seven Days (51 page)

 
I knew he was going to say that
!
  ‘Fuck me, look at that lot…’ I shout and hear the recruits scrambling forward to try and peer out the front.
  ‘Zombies ahead,’ Tucker shouts from his look-out position on the GMPG.
  ‘No shit… really, Tucker… where are they?’ Cookey yells back.
  ‘Ahead,’ Tucker shouts down.
  ‘I was being sarcastic,’ Cookey calls out.
  ‘What?’ Tucker yells.
  ‘I said I was being sarcastic,’ Cookey bellows out.
  ‘You want some elastic? Try my bag, there might be some in there, mate.’
  ‘Oh, for fucks sake,’ Cookey groans.
  ‘Give up mate, it’s a lost cause,’ McKinney offers.

So here we are, sitting in the Saxon, looking at a massed horde blocking the road ahead of us. The village doesn’t look that big, with just one main road going through a collection of shops and houses. There is a village green off to the right, bordered by a metal fence and the horde is gathered up against the fence. They start slowly turning round to face us.
  ‘Well, that’s a shit load of zombies,’ I say to Dave.
  ‘It is, Mr Howie.’
  ‘Do you think that the A…P…C… will get through them?’
  ‘Might do, Mr Howie,’
  ‘Right lads, buckle up,’ I call back. ‘TUCKER, HANG ON TIGHT,’ I yell up.
  ‘What?’ He yells back.
  ‘Ah, he’ll be all right.’ I re-start the engine and push my foot down, making the engine scream with power.

I slowly lift the clutch and the vehicle shoots forward and… stalls.
  ‘Not a word…’ I say, as I hear sniggers coming from behind me and try again, going a bit easier with the clutch this time.
  The vehicle surges forward, gathering speed quite quickly. We plough into the front of the horde and the hard metal square front detonates their heads and bodies, sending them spinning off and knocking more over.

I plough through and feel a slight bump as the massive tyres crush the undead beneath us. The vehicle hardly rocks on the suspension and, within seconds, we are through them; leaving a trail of broken and squashed bodies behind us. The lads all cheer and whistle and I can hear Tucker shouting something. I stop the Saxon and look over at Dave.
  ‘Did you see that? Fucking brilliant, this thing is awesome,’ I sound like an excited child, babbling away. ‘They were smashed apart and we hardly felt a thing.’
  ‘Yes.’
  I use the side, wing mirrors to look back and see the mangled remains and those not so injured picking themselves up off the floor.
  ‘Would be a shame to just leave them there, mate,’ I say to Dave, with a grin.
  ‘Do you want to go back again?’ he asks me.
  ‘Yeah, we could - or we could do it the old-fashioned way.’

Dave turns to look back at the recruits in the back. ‘Blowers, get those bayonets from the box and show the rest how to fit them on.’
  ‘Yes, DAVE!’ Blowers answers promptly and somehow makes the word “Dave” sound like “Sarge”.
  I reach down to the floor and lift my axe up, it is all shiny and clean; feeling nice and heavy. I test the blade with my thumb and jerk my hand back from the unexpected sharpness.
  ‘I sharpened it,’ Dave says.
  ‘Bloody hell, thanks mate. You still got the knives then,’ I say, as he suddenly has them in his hands; I didn’t even see where they came from.
  ‘I put new blades on these too,’ he says, staring along the sharp edges.

I can hear the recruits talking quietly and clicking noises; one them yelps.
  ‘I fucking told you it was sharp didn’t I,’ Blowers says with scorn. Then, after a few minutes, he shouts out that they are all ready.
  I feel the adrenalin start pumping and the anger is knocking at the door, waiting to be let out.
  I pull the axe and climb down from the high driver’s position. The zombies are shuffling closer to us and I hold the axe down at my side, as I walk round the front of the vehicle to meet Dave as he climbs out.

The lads jump down and walk back towards us, holding their rifles carefully, due to the massive nasty looking blades at the end.
  ‘Safety’s on,’ Dave says to them and they all look down, to check the side of their weapons. ‘Strike and move, use the weight of the weapon to drive them back with repeated stabs to the chest and torso. Use the butt of the weapon for blunt trauma. The bayonets are sharp and will slice through their jugulars easily. Be very careful if you have to fire the weapon in close confines, the round will rip through the body and come out the other side,’ instructs Dave – an impressively long speech from him!

Finally Dave turns to me and nods.
   I start to walk towards the encroaching zombies and stop. ‘Ready lads?’ I ask of the young recruits.
  ‘Yes, Mr Howie,’ they nearly all mutter.
  I turn and stalk towards the undead.
  The last few metres I stare hard at the nearest one, a large built male and I feel my eyelids twitching; with the image of my beloved parents being bitten by one of these foul things.
  The axe is down at my side as I step closer. Time slows and I feel my right fist clenching and, before I have any idea what I’m doing, I have slammed my hard fist into the side of the zombie’s head. I follow through with the punch and slam him across the road. He staggers into another undead and stays on his feet and I’m on him before he can react; punching again and again with my right fist. The blows send him down onto the floor and I go still. Waiting. Breathing.
  I feel them surround me, I feel their presence and I close my eyes in anticipation.

The danger of being so close to these evil things thrills me. The infection they carry is all around me, their teeth are being pulled back and they step and shuffle closer and closer.
  But I am death.
  And I come for you.
  I open my eyes and scream into the air, as I spin the axe up and round; slicing through skin and bone. I hold the aim towards necks and feel the sharpened blade bite and slice through their evil, tainted, infected skin.

I step backwards and drive down a massive, overhead strike; cleaving through a skull and watching as brains burst out and the head implodes.
  My senses are alive and I feel one lunging at my back. I step back and drive my elbow into his face, dropping him instantly. The axe is alive, an extension of my body. We are one and we destroy those that stand before us. I chop into heads and necks, slicing faces off. Biting the vicious blade into collarbones and spinal columns as they fall at my feet. I plough forward, swinging and killing. A quick glance over and I see Dave moving like water through them, his arms spinning with grace and beauty.
  A strange man with an amazing gift: moving like a ballet dancer - his whole body poised, flexing, bending and stretching with each killing blow. He darts forward and plunges the knives into the chest of a zombie woman, his arms a blur as he rapidly stabs and then slices through the jugular and drops down to avoid the spray that soaks into the eyes of the next zombie, blinding him. Dave spins round the back, dragging the blade after him, as he lunges forward, driving the point of his other knife into the throat of the next one.
  I go back to work and cleave my way through the bastard horde; the evil foul things that walk this world after their natural life has expired. I kill and maim and leave broken, undead bodies behind me. Then, I break through into a clearing and rejoice as I see a fresh and densely packed group ahead of me.
  The anger has only just warmed up, it has stretched out and flexed muscles and is now ready for the proper workout.
  I look back and see Blowers driving into them with a look of pure fury on his face. Cookey by his side, the banter and easy jokes gone now, as they tear the undead apart. Tucker is screaming with hatred and fear, hacking away. McKinney, Smith and all of them are in amongst them and the bodies fall down with hacked and bloodied injuries.
  I turn back to the horde ahead of me, just as Dave gets to my side. We stare at each other, words not needed, and we charge together, roaring into battle. Dave launches himself high into the air and comes down into them, his knives doing the deadly business of sending them back to the hell from whence they came.
  My axe is breaking them apart.

I pick my targets one by one.

A neck gets cleaved and the head drops down. I swing the blunt end back and I crush a skull. I drop the axe low and strike up into bollocks, destroying the undead’s chance’s of ever breeding his evil spawn. I spin and swing the axe behind me chopping a zombie arm off at the shoulder. Then low again and I take a leg off at the knee joint. This doesn’t kill them, but it pleases me to maim and hurt and make them fall down onto the bloody and slick ground.
  We keep going: chopping, slicing, hacking and destroying - until one dirty zombie remains and we gather round him.

Silent faces.

Hard breathing.

The zombie turns round and round, unable to decide which one of us to try and bite.

Me, Blowers, Cookey, McKinney, Smith, Tucker, Graves, Reese, Hewitt and Dave stand round this one remaining filthy, dirty, evil, zombie fucker.

We stare hard at him and I see the anger inside each of them. There is glory here; glory in battling alongside brave warriors such as these.
  Dave steps forward and takes the zombie by the back of his hair, wrenching his head back and pulling him off his feet. I roar and raise the axe high, driving it down into the exposed neck. As the blow lands, the recruits pile in and the zombie is punctured by eight sharp points from eight sharp bayonets being pushed by eight brave young warriors that have been pushed to the brink by these evil things. The body is hacked apart, unrecognisable within minutes.
  We walk silently back to the Saxon, taking long gulps of water from our canteens and nodding at each other.
  ‘That was fucking, beautiful,’ Cookey says quietly, to nods and murmurs of agreement from all around him.
  We use wipes to clean the blood from our weapons and skin and then load back into the Saxon.
  ‘At least you didn’t bum them, this time, Cookey,’ Blowers says.
  ‘Fuck you, Blowers - you were stabbing them in the willy,’ Cookey retorts.
  ‘The willy? Are you ten or something,’ McKinney joins in.
  ‘You were stabbing them in their zombie willies,’ Tucker laughs loudly, at the infantile language being used.
  ‘You can all get fucked,’ Cookey shouts and the abuse goes on.
I drive the Saxon away from the village, away from the devastation and the bodies lying festering in the sun.

Extract from Howie’s Journal:

All over the world, the infection feels the losses from these survivors.  The infection feels its size dwindling as the fighters become more deadly and more cunning in their resistance.
  Small groups gather and organise themselves, securing supplies and learning how to take the deadly hosts down during the daytime and then hiding themselves away in strong and secure locations that the zombies cannot penetrate.

  They take away ladders and ropes, lock strong doors and remove the keys; using the underground networks and anything they find that still works.
  The rats have progressed the rate of infection significantly and their small, wiry bodies have been able to get into places that the human hosts were unable to access, but they are easy to kill and put down.
  Through millions of eyes, the infection watches these fighters and it understands that in order to survive it must target these first.

  The infection again watches as the one called Howie leads his fighters in an attack and kills many hosts, and the infection watches through those millions of eyes to see when they will re-appear, so it can send the rats into them.
   Inside the minds of the test hosts, the infection continues to play with the brain and learn more of the complex secrets this thing possesses. It already understands that the hosts were not fully in control of these brains, and, like itself, it knows the brain is a work in progress; still in the early stages of evolution.
  The infection allows the mind to access memories and knowledge, but the billions and billions of images and thought processes just cause confusion as they are in no order and have no sense. But the infection controls many now and can work on these images, while the hosts rest and repair. The infection now knows that the same strengths, cunning and guile possessed by the fighters are locked inside these minds and it will work hard and fast to unlock them.
  Unlock them, not just to take more hosts, but to fight back.

  To buy itself time, the infection urges the rats on, devouring everything in their path. The success of the rats has spread across the world and soon they are scurrying over every street and road worldwide.
Bite, but don’t kill
is the message constantly replayed in their tiny brains. They work as a super organism and even the hardest and toughest resisters are consumed with panic as the black plague comes for them.

_________________________________________

We enter another small village and find a horde gathered outside a florist’s. The once beautiful flowers in the window are now wilting.

  This horde is small in number, compared to the previous one, maybe a dozen of them at most and I see a child zombie in the group this time. Thankfully, I haven’t killed any child zombies… yet. A couple of days ago I would have blanched at the thought of it and been sickened to the core. But now I’ve hardened and they are not children any more. They are undead and they will kill given the chance. They must be dealt with, like any other undead.
  ‘Can we stop please, Mr Howie,’ Dave says to me, snapping me out of my thoughts.
  ‘Yes, mate. Why? What’s up?’ I ask him as I bring the huge Saxon to a halt, causing the recruits to  cram forward.
  ‘Practise,’ Dave says simply and indicates to the small horde.
  ‘Okay, mate.’ The recruits clamber out and gather round Dave at the back of the vehicle. I draw my axe and look at the horde, itching to go for them and take them all out.
  ‘You did well with the last lot, but you were clumsy and slow. We are going to practise on these,’ Dave informs the recruits, as I lean on my axe.
  ‘Take off the bayonets and I will show you some basic techniques for using it as a bladed weapon.’ The recruits do as instructed and remove the bayonets from the end of the assault rifles.
  ‘Now… weapons back in the Saxon and follow me.’