Great Bitten: Outbreak (9 page)

“You still sure this is a good idea bro?”

“Don’t call me bro. We’re not in a fucking action movie.”

“Well?”

“Of course it is. I’m not waiting in a car to be tinned meat for whenever a pack of those hungry buggers come down the hill. Listen. We don’t have much light, and those things don’t make much noise. I’m not sure what’s creepier, the howling ones they put on TV or these silent fuckers that just appear and make you shit yourself. But we’re not seasoned travellers, and we’re not Bear Grylls. I couldn’t concentrate enough to tell you when there are things sneaking up on us, and I sure as hell can’t follow tracks to help us forage to survive. We have to stay near civilisation. And we definitely have to get to the boat. We’ve got enough supplies to bed it out for a short while just offshore. The coast will burn itself out and then we can start coming in on low tides to get more supplies from stores and isolated places that look safe. We…
whoa what the fuck
!”

Those ‘silent fuckers’ – well
apparently you need to pay attention to where you’re walking now. Rick found this out as he fell face-first to the pavement. There was a corpse writhing around on the floor. I say corpse. Torso was perhaps more accurate. The arms were flailing and, lucky for Rick, for some reason the thing wasn’t able to grip or hold him. He scuttled backwards on his arse, legs flailing to keep the body’s limbs away. I was curious how he didn’t already have a bite out of his ankle so, seeing as it was already distracted with Rick, I leant a bit closer to check it out. The fact that it had been left as a torso suggested someone had already had a good go at killing this poor… on closer inspection… man. The lower half of the body was gone just below the belly button, and a sad smear of innards and entrails lay in a shuffled circle. Like every single zombie we had seen so far, this one was utterly silent aside from the occasional wheeze as a rancid wisp of air was expelled from the lungs by one force or another. The mouth was opening and closing but the shape was sunken, the visage not so unlike a fish. As the smell of the clotting blood and organs began to make me heave I shot up myself, realising a terrible truth.

This zombie had been attacked and left to suffer.

Not only was someone deluded enough to believe that these poor beings still had emotion or feeling beyond the carnal hungers they were now being driven by, they had been sadistic enough to remove any way the zombie had of feeding itself, and they had left it to waste away in to the tarmac.

The teeth were all gone, smashed brutally from the jaw. My eyes darted down to the hands; still there, but
there were useless bloody stumps now where fingers should have been. The blood was everywhere, his old gingham office shirt, what was left of his chin and cheeks, all long since dried. I hadn’t read enough to know what happened to them after death biologically. But it stood to reason that you couldn’t really bleed if you had no circulation to pump things? And when did the coagulants to clot things stop working? Without oxygen? Had someone done this to a person that had been alive and then left them to be found and infected by the undead?

Rick was seeing this too. He rolled and vomited, and I turned and dry-heaved, long since devoid of digestive content since my encounters at
Carla’s house. The zombie was still rolling and thrashing, desperate to sate its hunger and pitifully unable to do so. I almost felt sorry for it. Not bad enough to be consigned to this fate as one of the infected, it would now also be left to starve to a slow and lingering second death; at least we could grant it a quick end. Not this senseless and mindless torture. Rick gingerly rolled back around and scrabbled for his bag. He forgot about the gun and as the zombie made a huge desperate lunge, he stood back on to it. The shotgun went off with a resounding crack of buckshot that echoed around the empty streets. There were no people near us; no houses that were close enough for us to have drawn attention to ourselves. We knew it wasn’t people that we had to worry about and in the still of night that sound will have gone a long long way.

I swore viciously and with a frustrated sweep buried the claw of my hammer in the back of the man’s head.

“Get the fuck up you idiot. We need to get out of here sharpish before something answers that noise.”

Carla
was already helping him up. “You’re not even going to check if he’s hurt? You heartless shit. He could have been shot!”

“Two things. If he’d have been shot, there would have been less noise. Perhaps preferable to what might now be heading our way. Secondly, I’m pretty sure he would have pointed the fact out with some kind of womanly pained gurgle. Pick up the bag, pick up the gun, and let’s go. And this time, let’s look where we’re going. We’ve already established these things are creepy-grade quiet, so we need to really keep our wits about us.”

Thankfully without much more fuss we set off on foot. I tried to ignore the billowing orange haze rising above us in the night sky. It couldn’t be the marina. It just couldn’t.

+++

“
Alliance does not mean love any more than war means hate.” – Francis Parker Yockey

“The fucking
marina is on fire. I knew it! I just knew it! Why did we even come this close?”

It wasn’t a question so I avoided supplying
Carla with any answers, sarcastic or otherwise. We were close enough to the seafront now to figure out that it was the marina that had gone up in smoke. It was too dark to see much out at sea, but there was an occasional twinkling from some gloating bastards that had managed to get in to their life rafts and float away. Vagrant tossers
[4]
.

There were more signs of life over this way too. We found ourselves gawping in silence alongside another two sets of families. I shared a glance with one of the men in their group and silent understanding passed between us.

“Looking for your boat?”

“Yep. You?”

“Yep. Don’t think we’re going to find it though. Unless you want to recreate the ending to Viking?”

“I’ll give it a miss. Have you guys got a different plan?”

“Nope. Didn’t really think everything would go so wrong so soon. You?”

“Nope. Already had two of the things in our house before we left.”

“Two? Geez… were you alright? I mean, you look alright?”

I saw him shuffle ever so slightly away from me. Sure, we were being pleasant enough to each other now, but how could anyone know who was bitten and simply hiding it? How long did the incubation process really last? Had I actually gotten away with it myself, considering the amount of infected blood I’d had spattered over me in the last 24 hours?

“Yeah I’m fine. More than fine considering this time yesterday I was in London. At least we’re not there, hey?”

The man laughed nervously, but didn’t back off any further. Hopefully he didn’t think I was infected. I looked down. I was covered in blood. Maybe I wouldn’t go too far with arguing with me either at that point, but I definitely wouldn’t trust me, and I wouldn’t want to make friends with me either. He was probably trying to plan his escape before I latched our group on to his.

“Want to group together?” That caught me by surprise. He must have been able to tell, as he ploughed on without giving me a chance to answer. “I mean, if you’ve already survived two of them, I’m guessing it was you that did all the hard work by the looks of things. And if you managed to get out of London too, you must be resourceful. You might not have a plan, but if there’s a group of us we’re more likely to survive right?”

I was on guard and suspicious.
The other family had already shuffled silently away and I wondered if this offer had been made and rejected already, perhaps more than once. Towards the end of his impromptu pitch this guy – this complete stranger, in fact - went high pitched and almost maniacal. There must be an underlying reason why he’d want to throw his lot in with an unknown group, one of whom was covered in blood without even querying background, numbers, or anything. “How many of you are there?”

“It’s just me, my wife and son.” He gestured behind him and only then did I notice the meek woman clutching a petrified toddler at her shoulder. Don’t work with children or animals. Don’t work with children or animals. Don’t…

“What’s going on Warren?”

Carla
stood alongside me and gave the man a quizzical look. His desperate eyes appeared to turn her more sympathetic than cautious, as she quickly came to the same conclusion I had asked for. “Were you heading to the marina?”

“We were. I’m not sure whether it would actually be worth it now, looking at that.”

“We thought the same. Even if my boat hasn’t been stolen, it’s likely on fire, looted, or some combination of the two. But we’ve got no idea what to do next. Is there anywhere safe to go here?”

“Nothing. We were going to head back along the coast, but the town…”

“You’ve been in the town? Where did you come from?”

“We came from
Bennington. The town centre is riddled. The screams and all the people just dying. It was hell.”

“How did you get out?”

“We only live on the edge. We thought we got out early enough, but seems like most of the area had the same idea as us.”

“Looks like water is the only safe place at the moment. What if we could get the attention of a boat? Maybe wade out with the tide low or something?”

Carla’s idea actually seemed credible, but our new friend shot it down in flames almost straight away. “It’s high tide at the moment and let’s face it, if you’ve managed to be ruthless enough to actually get on one of those boats, are you going to let some total strangers on it? I suppose the only thing we could do is try to get to a boat a different way. But how? Where?”

“There are fishing boats in
Bennington. And there’s a yacht club, but I’m guessing that will have gone the same way as the marina. Thing is it’s not right in the town, so maybe that’s worth a shot? The only other thing I can think of is the airport in Shoreham. Or heading for the Downs. There’ll be no one up there. We’d have a good vantage point and we can wait out until the government get control of the situation.”

             
Ah. The first time he’d let his credibility slip. It was a shame; I was actually starting to believe it would be a good idea to team up with him. “I quite like the idea of the airport. Where’s Shoreham?”

             
“We’d need to either get through Bennington, which I really don’t recommend, or try to go up and over. The A27 slip roads have been barricaded.”

             
“Are people actually paying attention to the barricades?”

             
“If you want to try and move four flaming patrol cars, be my guest.” He grinned at me. My face must have illustrated my response better than words. “Seems like no one is paying any attention to the road blocks, no. Christ knows what happened, but there’s now just flaming hunks of metal in the way of the road. And I saw one or two wrecks on the road as well. People aren’t looking where they’re going; they’re just going. We need to be different to those people otherwise we’ll just end up like all the rest of them. We need a plan.”

             
“We need somewhere safe. If you’ve thought of the airport, so have other people. And what’s the likelihood we’d find a pilot. With a plane. That would be big enough to help us out. And not shot down as it tried to get in to another country.”

             
“They’re not shooting down planes from the UK.”

             
“How do you know?”

             
“Be serious Warren,” Rick interrupted. “What’s your name pal? I’m Rick. This is my girlfriend Carla. The bastion of hope and joy you’ve been talking to is Warren.”

              The man smiled. “I’m Daniel. Dan. This is my wife Anna and our boy, Thomas. So you’ll agree to group up?”

             
“There’s no point abandoning people. And it’s got to be better in a group, right?”

             
“Exactly what I thought.”

             
Rick offered his hand he and Dan exchanged some kind of wrist-pumping clasp. I had been completely usurped, and felt a little bit annoyed. But the truth was the truth, and we had to be better in a group. At least there was one more man, and another pair of eyes to help stand watch.

             
“So what next?” Rick queried. “We can’t just stand here all night. Eventually someone or something not so friendly is going to wander past and I’ve had enough of blood and gore for one day.”

             
Carla moved across to Anna and stretched her arms out to the boy. He huddled closer to his mother, who smiled apologetically. Carla grinned and they started conspiratorially whispering. I gestured at her to stay near us and she waved me off, so I turned back to Rick and Dan. They were looking at me helplessly. I wished Rick would actually decide whether or not he wanted to be in charge of our little group and grow some balls accordingly; his occasional outbursts of dominance were starting to become a little tedious.

             
“So what are the options? I think we’ll all agree that the airport is a no-no. Sounds like the routes are all blocked and even if we did get there, we might be on a hiding to nothing. The Downs. How do we get there, and how safe is it?”

             
“Safe as you like though we’ll be pretty exposed as it’s pretty much just hill. I’m not sure I’d trust being in a house at the moment, and going back to our own home is out the question. You’ve said yours has already been compromised. Where were you?”

             
“Up in High Salvington. I thought it was a freak chance as our neighbour was caught. But then we saw quite a few of them wandering around. Had half a dozen playing jump on the car bonnet as we left our drive, so it was cutting it pretty close.”

             
“This thing travels pretty quickly, doesn’t it?”

             
“Well the transport they haven’t stopped is what’s killing everyone. Our neighbour told us a train came in from London literally full of them. The thought of them pouring out of train stations and in to cities is… petrifying. Bennington’s not a big place so once it got to us it was going to get pretty messy pretty quickly.”

             
Dan tilted his head at me. “You were in London yesterday. How did you manage to get out unscathed?”

             
“I caught it pretty early. When I say pretty early, I mean probably almost the start. It was the early hours of the morning and I saw one in the street. I shat myself, checking social media and decided to leg it just in case. I say leg it… I cycled. Worst morning of my life.”

             
“Sounds pretty risky. You did well. You always that naturally paranoid?”

             
“I don’t often come across undead old ladies shambling in the street. Let’s just say it got my attention. I wasn’t going to hang around to see what happened.”

             
“So you’re not. That’s a shame. Edgy paranoia is probably useful in situations like this. Good to have someone that can pull out the worst case scenario in all our options.”

             
“Oh don’t worry, Warren can still do that.”

             
“Shut up Rick. We’re not getting anywhere rambling, and we’re lucky we haven’t had anyone come across us whilst we’ve been standing around yapping. What’s the vote? Head back for the downs?”

             
“Have you got a car?”

             
“No. We had a blow-out up the road. You?”

             
“We have, and fuel. The roads are still pretty quiet. People are either bedding down or they’ve already got out of Dodge from what I can gather.”

             
“Either that or the third option: they were out in the centre of Dodge, and they’re still there waiting to feast. Is anywhere going to be actually safe now? I like the idea of the Downs the most, but how long are we going to last?”

“We have food in the car.”

“We have food and water, and some other basic stuff. But we’ll be exposed and I don’t know about you, but I’m not exactly a class A pro at shelter building. We’ll need to collect some supplies before we make a stay in the wild, but I wouldn’t even know where to begin looking.”

“There are loads of stores, but they’re all by populated areas.”

“Hang on hang on, we need to get the ladies in on this too.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “It’s shopping.”

Dan shook his head. “Don’t let my wife hear you saying stuff like that mate, she’ll tear you a new one.”

“I’ve threatened it enough times but apparently there are laws against it, even when they are family. Now, what are we deciding?”

Carla
elbowed in to the middle of us all and I enlightened her, despite the fact we hadn’t made any pertinent decisions yet. She swivelled her eyes back and forth between us all. “So our decisions are head for high ground, or head for high ground. But get some gear first. So we’re fucked, is what you’re basically saying?”

“Shit creek is severely lacking in paddles, yes.”

“We can sleep in the car so it’s not as if we’ll get exposure or anything like that. No wait… how big is your car?”

“It’s a Touran, don’t worry we can all fit in it. Shouldn’t even be too much of a squeeze.”

“Then let’s take the car up to the Downs, hide out for a bit. We can last more than a couple of days if we pool resources and we don’t have to worry about shelter. We’ve got weapons. We’ve got water. Why are we even debating this? Let’s get the hell out of here?”

“Well that makes sense. What were we talking about?”

“I suppose we should talk about plans for when… they arrive…”

“Well when…” I began, they I turned in the direction Anna was looking. There were three of them shambling towards us. There wasn’t much else in the area now; we were closer and the occasional set of car headlights in the distance didn’t appear to deter them from the meal that was much closer to hand. It was another set of three slow-coaches. I remembered back to the ones that had thrown themselves on the car in the driveway. I sent up a little thankful note that we hadn’t ran in to any of those yet in our wanderings. Rick clutched his shotgun and I waved him down. I slung down my backpack and pulled out my hammer. It had done well enough so far, and I know there was another one in Rick’s. I checked on Dan. “You got anything we can use to get the job done quietly? One each?”