The Undead. The First Seven Days (91 page)

A knock at the door interrupts them and Terri walks in.
  ‘You’re dressed, then?’ She asks, lightly. ‘Dave asked me to give you this, he’s got one and said to tell you the spotters have them too.’
  ‘Ah that’s great, how many more have we got?’ Howie asks.
  ‘I don’t know, Malcolm came in and took all the radios into one of the other rooms further down,’ she replies.
  ‘Okay, Terri have we got any diggers or plant machinery here?’ Howie asks, taking the radio.
  ‘I’ll find out, the Sergeant has lists of everything,’ Terri answers, before smiling at Howie again and heading for the door.
  ‘That coffee was really nice, by the way,’ Howie calls out, she turns and smiles back again before closing the door behind her.
 
‘Howie to Dave,’
he speaks into the radio, holding the big side-button down.
 
‘Dave receiving, go ahead
,
Howie.’
  ‘Radio check, receiving you loud and clear.’
  ‘Dave to Howie, Roger loud and clear this end, out.’
 
‘Right, let’s go and find Malcolm and see what he’s got,’ Howie says.

They step out into the bright sunlight to find guards lazing about, stretched out in the warm sun, leaning against the wall or chatting to each other and the survivors.

Howie and Chris stroll down, until they reach Sergeant Hopewell’s office; they see her sitting at a desk and looking up at Terri.
  ‘Hi, Mr Howie,’ Howie turns to see Tom Jenkins and Steven walking towards him, from the main camp area.
  ‘Hey mate, everything all right?’ Howie replies.
  ‘Yeah, the Sergeant’s got us patrolling the camp to show a presence - everyone keeps asking us when the fighting starts, or if they can have weapons,’ Steven answers.
  ‘Steven, Mr Howie was asking me, not you,’ Tom says, petulantly.
  ‘No, he wasn’t, he was asking both of us,’ Steven fires back.
  ‘I’m the policeman, you’re just a community officer, so leave the serious stuff to us.’
  ‘No, Tom, you
were
a police officer, but Mr Howie said there isn’t a police force anymore, so if there isn’t one, how can you be a police officer? Ha, we’re both the same now.’
  ‘No, I’ve been trained more than you,’ Tom says, defensively.
  ‘Trained in what? How to take a statement? Custody procedures? That doesn’t really help us now, does it?’
  ‘I’ve got more unarmed defence training than you, Steven.’
  ‘No, you didn’t, we both got the same, you just got taught how to use your baton and pepper spray - I know, because we partnered up for the training, you bloody idiot.’
  ‘Lads, listen, I think it’s probably fair to say that you’re both the same now, but you’re both very valued and it’s good you’re going round the camp and letting people know you are there,’ Howie says, diplomatically.
  ‘Ha, fuck you, Tom Jenkins,’ Steven shouts, triumphantly, as Tom stares at him in horror.
  ‘I’ll leave you to it, lads,’ Howie chuckles and steps into the office, Terri and Sergeant Hopewell both stare out, shaking their heads.
  ‘They’ll never bloody change that pair,’ the Sergeant mutters.
  ‘They seem good lads, though,’ Howie laughs. ‘Did you find out about the diggers or plant machinery Terri? Oh, hi Sarah, I didn’t see you there.’
  ‘My job was mainly administration, so I thought I’d put myself to good use, besides, Patricia here was feeling a little lost, so I said she could stay with me,’ Sarah replies, indicating the girl sitting further in the room, drawing on some paper.
  ‘Where’s the other woman that was with you? Mary wasn’t it?’ Howie asks.
  ‘She’s getting cleaned up, then is coming over here,’ Sarah says.

Howie turns back to see Terri standing at a desk loaded with thick piles of paper.
  ‘Bloody hell, that’s a lot of lists,’ Howie says.
  ‘Language, Howie,’ Sarah warns.
  ‘Sorry, err, so… about the diggers?’
  ‘Right, so we have compiled a list of all the people within the Fort: name, date of birth and last known address. We added work skills and any former military training or firearms experience, pistol or rifle clubs - that kind of thing. We have divided and sub-divided the interior of the Fort into sections and allocated people into those sections, so we know roughly the area they should be in. We also appointed a contact person within each section that we can go to and find out where the section residents are. The idea is that each resident of each section reports to the section contact where they will be, in case they are needed,’ Terri explains. ‘We have also listed every vehicle in the area, and if they are usable or if we have access to them with keys. We categorised each vehicle into commercial or non-commercial, with a reference to how much fuel the vehicle has, and, of course, which fuel type. So, in answer to your question…’ Terri pulls a clipboard from the pile and starts flicking through the lists.
  ‘You’ve listed the people that have military experience or firearms knowledge?’ Howie asks.
  ‘Yes,’ Terri answers, without looking up.
  ‘Can you get that list to Malcolm, he’s setting up an armoury here, somewhere - I don’t suppose you recorded what kind of firearms they have previously used, have you?’ Chris asks.
  ‘Of course we have,’ Terri replies, still not looking up. ‘We’ll get that to him straight away, ah here it is, yes we have access to three diggers and a cross reference to the people that can operate them.’ Terri looks up and smiles, her blue eyes twinkling.
  ‘Wow, that’s great,’ Howie says, amazed at the volume of work they’ve undertaken already. ‘Can you get those digger drivers to us, as soon as possible.’
  ‘Of course,
Mr
Howie,’ Terri says mock demurely, as she steps outside. ‘Can I have three runners in here please,’ Terri calls out.

Within seconds, three slim, teenage boys run into the room, almost standing to attention in front of Terri, who runs her finger down the list of vehicles and then starts flicking through the pages of names of the Fort occupants.
  ‘I need you to find George Kimberly from Section 2, Martin Aylesbury from Section 7 and Mark Donovan from Section 18. Bring them back here, as soon as possible, thank you,’ Terri looks up with a stern face, nodding at the boys to get moving.

They run into the thick crowds and weave through the tents and structures.
  ‘That’s brilliant,’ Howie says, watching the lads sprint away. ‘Is there any kind of blacksmith’s here or workshops?’
  ‘There’s workshops, quite well equipped too, from what Ted told me,’ Sergeant Hopewell replies.
  ‘Terri, can you also find engineers, mechanics and metal workers and send them up to us?’ Howie asks.
  ‘Of course, leave it with me, I’ll get more of those runners out,’ she replies, examining her lists.
  ‘Those runners are great,’ Howie says, admiringly.
  ‘Oh, those boys all like our Terri here, especially when she smiles at them,’ Debbie says, without looking up from the papers in front of her.
  ‘I bet they do,’ Howie says, then instantly blushes, as he realises what he said. ‘I mean, err, I’m sure they… do… shall we go and see Malcolm then?’ he says, turning to Chris, who is smiling broadly and leaning against the wall.
  ‘Or we could stay here and watch you trying to pull your foot out of your mouth,’ Chris replies.
  ‘Very funny, thanks for the list, Terri, err... we’ll be off then,’ Howie says, turning to see Sarah leaning back in her chair, watching him with amusement.

Howie steps out, rubbing his face, groaning softly to himself. Chris comes out, shaking his head silently. They walk down a few steps to find an armed guard outside a set of solid looking metal gates, that lead into a tunnel.
  ‘Is Malcolm in here?’ Chris asks the guard.
  ‘Yes, Chris, down there to the right,’ the guard opens the gate to admit Howie and Chris.

They enter the short tunnel and turn right into a large room. Natural light trickles in from barred windows set into the wall. Long workbenches run down one side, weapons of all types are stacked up next to boxes of ammunition. Malcolm and Clarence work their way through the weapons, checking and clearing.
  ‘Hi Chris, we’ve got quite a lot here really,’ Malcolm says, straight to the point. ‘We’ve got some decent rifles, which will be good on the walls for longer range, we’ve separated the assault rifles, some of them are only 9 millimetre, which is no good for longer range, loads of shotguns too.’
  ‘How about ammunition?’ Chris asks.
  ‘You can never have enough rounds,’ Malcolm replies. ‘We’ve got quite a lot, but it’ll soon go if we get into a period of sustained firing.’
  ‘Did you find out if there are any gunsmiths nearby?’ Chris asks, picking up one of the rifles from the bench.
  ‘There’s a few actually, all in a ten mile radius,’ Malcolm replies.
  ‘Clarence, can you get some people together and a couple of vehicles - vans would be good - we’re going to need a foraging party. See Sergeant Hopewell next door, I bet she’s got a list of them somewhere,’ Chris says to the huge man.
  ‘Got it,’ Clarence rumbles, putting down an assault rifle. ‘What else do we need?’
  ‘Any kind of weapon you can get: guns, knives, swords, axes - anything we can use. Also, we’ll need nuts, bolts and short chains, to make grapeshot for the cannon.’ Chris explains.
  ‘Clarence, try and get some more arrows too,’ Malcolm calls out.
  ‘Arrows?’ Chris asks, looking about.
  ‘There’s quite a few competition level archers in here, have you seen the range and power on modern bows?’ Malcolm replies, indicating the end of the bench and the modern bows racked up next to a pile of arrows.
  ‘Fair enough, get whatever you can, Clarence,’ Chris says.
  ‘On it,’ Clarence replies and steps out of the room.

Back in their planning room, Howie and Chris sit down and go over what they’ve already set in motion, discussing the finite details. There is a knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ shouts Howie.
  ‘Hi, we were asked to come here?’ A middle-aged man enters, followed by two younger men.
  ‘Hi, thanks for coming, excuse me asking but who are you?’ Howie stands, holding his hand out to the closest one.
  ‘I’m George,’ the first man answers, the other two introduce themselves as Martin and Mark.
  ‘Ah, you must be the digger drivers then,’ Howie asks.
  ‘Yeah, we are, not just diggers, but anything like that really,’ George answers.
  ‘Do you know each other?’ Chris says, watching the men closely.
  ‘I’ve known Martin for years, we worked together before, err, before this - we only met Mark here though.’
  ‘When did you arrive?’ Howie asks.
  ‘Saturday afternoon, we heard the broadcast and came straight here, me and Martin didn’t have far to come, we live near each other too, well we
lived
near each other…’
  ‘Mark, when did you arrive here?’ Chris takes over the questions.
  ‘Sunday morning, Sir,’ Mark answers, in a polite tone.
  ‘I apologise if this is an insensitive question, but did you come with your families?’ Chris asks.
  ‘I’ve got my wife and son with me, Sir,’ Mark says.
  ‘We’ve got our wives and children here too,’ George adds.
  ‘Have any of you been bitten, scratched or had any direct contact with those…’
  ‘He means the zombies, have you had any contact with the zombies?’ Howie finishes off for Chris.
  ‘No, Sir, I saw them, but we hid in the house and then got down here quickly, they were in the street when we left, but it was daytime and they were slow,’ Mark says first, Howie looks to George and Martin.
  ‘Well, we had a spot of bother getting out of our road, there was a couple of them in the way…’ George says, nervously.
  ‘What did you do?’ Chris asks.

Martin and George look at each other, then back at Chris.
  ‘We, err, well we run them over with the van,’ George says, after a pause.
  ‘You were all in one van and you ran them over? Did you make contact with them physically, get any blood on you or get cut, bitten or scratched, or did any of your families?’ Chris says, staring hard at them.
  ‘No, Sir, nothing like that, the van got blood on it, but none of us did,’ George says, as Martin nods in agreement.

Chris looks to Howie, nodding once.
  ‘Okay, sorry about the questions, but we had to be sure none of you were infected or ran the risk of being infected. We have a task for you, but before we say anything about it, would you all be willing to have a full medical examination?’ Howie asks.

They each nod and reply that they would agree to the exam.

After the men are thoroughly examined by the doctor, Chris starts to explain.
  ‘Okay, gentlemen, we need some trenches dug into the ground near the housing line, but we want to do it so we can hide them afterwards, or, at least, cover them up, so they’re not easily visible, is that possible?’ Chris says.
  The three men look to each other, thinking, until George takes a small step forward, nominating himself as the unofficial spokesman.
  ‘It depends on how deep and how wide?’ George replies. ‘The grass is long enough out there to cut some down and lay the cuttings across the top, that would cover it and blend in somewhat, but only if it’s not too wide or deep.’
  ‘We want it roughly two yards wide, so it’s not easy to step over or jump, and deep enough to put either some spikes in or some flammable material,’ Howie replies.
  ‘Oh, I get it, like a trap for the zombie army,’ Martin cuts in. ‘Yeah, that can be done… for spikes you would want a decent drop in there, for the body to be impaled though.’
  ‘Yeah, a few inches wouldn’t do it, unless they were razor sharp that is, otherwise you’d need a couple of feet at least,’ Mark adds.
  ‘I reckon we could dig ‘em out about three feet deep and a couple yards width and be able to cover them over, it won’t be pretty, but I reckon we know what you want and we’ll do the best we can,’ George says earnestly, as Martin and Mark both nod.
  ‘Good, we’ll have some guards go out with you to give you some protection; we need to do this now though. The most important thing is that you do not mention a word of this between here and getting outside the gate, that is vitally important, is that clear?’
  ‘Sir, we won’t say anything, but could you let our families know we’ll be back a bit later, they’ll only worry otherwise,’ Martin replies.
  ‘Of course we will, Chris will show you on the map exactly what we need and I’ll be back in a minute,’ Howie says, ushering the men over to the table.