The Common Cold (Book 2): A Zombie Chronicle-Cabin Fever (15 page)

“That means we’ll need someone with guns to cover those with
the shovels, you can’t do two things at once,” Danny suggested. “Have we any
electrical insulation tape?”

“Why?” Tom asked.

“If we wrap towels around our legs, we can secure them on
with insulation tape. That sort of tape is tough and should be enough to
withstand a short attack, long enough to allow someone with a gun to finish the
attacker off.”

“Neat,” Rob said. “That’s a great idea.”

“When I was a kid playing cricket we used to do that before
I could afford proper leg pads,” Danny said, remembering those heady days of
summer as a child.

“I never understood that game,” Mike said.

“To truly get it I guess you have to grow up with it like I
did. A bit like baseball for you guys.”

“I guess,” Mike agreed. “Tom, Laurie, do you have some
towels we can use?”

“Yeah, we’ve plenty,” Laurie said and walked over to a wall
cupboard. “How many of you will be out there?”

“Probably four of us in all.
Two
with the shovels and two covering them,” Mike replied.

“So that’s eight towels. Right?” she asked, holding one up
and turning to Danny for his approval.

“Yes, they look perfect.
Tape, anyone?”

“I have a couple of spools,” Chuck offered.

“So we’re all sorted,” Danny smiled grimly as he spoke.
Inside he hoped this would be defence enough for the short journey of thirty yards
to the adjacent cabin.

“Mike, you need to tell Cliff and Angela,” Bill said, having
listened to the conversation up to now, wishing his eyesight was not the
problem it currently was. This feeling of helplessness was not something he
would ever get used to and he prayed it was only a short-term issue. If it
persisted he decided in that moment that he would kill himself rather than be a
burden under these desperate circumstances.

“I’ll call him and let him know,” Janet offered. “Good thing
he took a walkie talkie with him, that’s all I can say. You just focus on what
you have to do. I don’t imagine they’ll want to come back over here, even with
this knowledge.”

“Probably not,” Tom agreed. “Right let’s do this.”

Rob and Danny agreed to do the shovel work, while Tom and
Mike would cover their efforts to clear a suitable area where the creatures
couldn’t lurk. Chuck would remain back at the cabin covering them with his
rifle. That way they had all angles sorted all the way over to the other cabin.

“Right, it’s just gone 1600 hours, sunset is about 1700; I
want this done in fifteen minutes, while it’s still light enough for us to be
safe. We also have to consider making a safe landing area for BB and co. If we
can clear away enough snow those bastards won’t be able to creep up on us.”

Having checked each other’s towel armour, the round up team stepped
out of the front door, out of the warmth and safety. Rob and Danny began
shovelling snow away from a six foot wide straight line they had agreed upon
that led straight to the front door of the girls’ cabin. In spite of the
tightly wound towels, their physical movement was relatively unimpeded and they
made good progress. In spite of the fire cover provided the two friends had
brought their own pistols, just in case. Tom and Mike scoured the snow’s
surface trying to figure out what tell-tale signs to look out for, and how easy
any signs would be to see if any of the zombies had already begun to make their
way towards the lengthening path. Although Zoë had said they would show as
bumps that moved, considering the lay of this piece of land, the surface was
already wildly uneven due to loose rocks and the roadside rubble.

Arriving at the mid-point across the open area, they swapped
roles, Rob and Danny grateful for the break. Moving snow, certainly that much,
was harder than it looked. Peering around they could tell it was already
getting dark, well ahead of the official sunset time; perhaps the area was
being shaded by the trees and higher peaks to the west. Fifteen minutes was
probably an ambitious schedule for this endeavour.

“There!” Rob called, pointing off to his left. Digging
stopped and everyone looked to see what had caught his attention. Danny peered
closely and saw movement.

“Holy crap!” he exclaimed when he realised what he was
seeing. Or was he, after all it was white against white, so was he seeing
things?
Suggestible vision perhaps.
No, there it was
again. About twenty yards away. It was like a mole or gopher digging through
soil, raising a track on the surface. Now he knew what he was looking for, he
peered carefully at his side of the path. His hackles stood up, the goose bumps
rising under his clothing; he could count four moving bumps. They had come a
lot closer than he was comfortable with without being detected. Sneaky fuckers,
he thought angrily. Now he was able to recognise similar movement at about twice
the distance out as well. It was like watching a platoon of sub-nival
inhabitants, perhaps using sound to direct them to their prey, just like moles;
it almost appeared as if they were at home in this new environment. If so they
were better suited to this territory than the breathers, who preferred to stay
out of the icy cold weather. Will these things keep on learning and adapting,
he wondered? He certainly hoped not. The other point he was wrestling with was
what drove them so arduously to their prey, was it hunger or something else?

Lining up about a foot ahead of the movement, trying to predict
where the head would be, he fired. The round thudded into the snow and a
creature leapt up in anger, leaping out of the snow and into the air in its enthusiasm.
Three more shots from Chuck and Rob punched holes into its chest and head,
throwing it backwards onto the ground. Dark gobbets of dark red gore spattered
the virgin whiteness. Two more of the creatures leapt from their hiding places on
each side of them and ran towards the men. It was like a silent signal had been
sounded; suddenly all of the Infected leapt to the surface and ran at the men
out in the open; there had to have been fifteen or so making their way to the
cabin under the snow or at least lying in wait to ambush the unwary journeyman.
A short skirmish ensued, the enemy coming in from both sides. The gunfire was intense,
round after round casting broken and bloody bodies onto the pristine snow. Two
of the Infected in the charge appeared to be using some sort of previously held
knowledge, ducking and weaving their way towards their target, avoiding every
bullet sent in their direction. Finally one fell in a bloody heap, its face
barely recognisable as several bullets tore into it simultaneously.

The last one remaining came close enough to fling itself at
Danny, who had just dropped his now empty rifle and hurriedly picked up the shovel
Tom had jettisoned when the attack started. Swinging as if playing cricket and hitting
for the boundary, the edge of the blade ripped through the creature’s neck and both
of them fell together in a bloody mess to the ground, the head rolling away to
one side.

“Oh, Jesus!”
Danny exclaimed
frantically crawling out from underneath the headless corpse. A final crack as a
gun delivered a coup de
grâce
to a crippled zombie
that was crawling its way towards Rob and finally silence reigned. Everyone was
on guard now, trying to see more of them that might still be hiding before they
got too close. The confidence and safety they had all felt when arriving at the
assumed safe haven up in the mountains had all but dissolved with the
realisation that the hunters had definitely become the hunted, the predator
lacking the self-preservation instincts that would have kept even the most
ferocious of animals at a distance from a person carrying a gun. All was still
and silence reigned. Rob searched into the treeline but saw no further
movement. Chuck ran over with night vision goggles and handed them to Mike who
donned them and began a slow scan as far into the trees as he could from this
distance.
Still nothing.
He removed them to survey the
dead lying all around.

Danny wandered over to the head and saw that it was still
mouthing something, its eyes blinking. “Fucking thing still looks angry,” he
said before planting the blade between its eyes, allowing its greenish-grey
brains to spill out. All life, or whatever it was, faded from its eyes and it
became just another meal for the worms. “That’s twice I’ve been on the ground
today, I think I’ll stay indoors for a week to build up some more luck. Clearly
I’m running low.”

Stacey and Jackie had come to their door during the
fire-fight and in the ensuing silence decided now was the moment to make their
unsteady and nervous way across the snow in a terror powered race towards the
men. Tom, in fear that some remainder might yet be under the sea of white, ran
towards them closely followed by Danny wielding the gore spattered shovel. Raising
their guns the others covered the helter-skelter, panicked rush. Grabbing an
arm of each of the girls they were escorted quickly across the newly dug-out
channel. Surveying the field of battle, Danny realised that these Infected had
set up the perfect ambush; two concentric circles of zombies had been formed
around the open area that had, up to now, been regularly walked across. If it
had not been for his first shot, it was just possible that this ambush might
have laid claim to several lives, a thought he quickly swept from his mind as
being too awful to contemplate. Mostly he reflected on the fact that if it had
not been for Brad’s timely warning of this danger, many of those alive in the
cabin now would have been killed or become what they all dreaded most of all.

With the two girls safely ensconced back in Tom’s cabin, the
men continued to clear more of the area in the hope of preventing another concealed
attack and to prepare for BB’s imminent arrival. With luck BB would be less
than a couple of hours out by now. With the front having moved off to the west
the first stars were appearing in the darkening and inky blue sky. Somehow it
felt to Danny as if nature was on their side for the moment, giving them a much
needed reprieve from the weather. Whatever the morning brought, they would be
safe for the night. By learning more about their enemy every day they survived,
they would soon be in a position to proactively protect
themselves
for a change. They might even be able to plan for the future rather than what
had been, at least up to now, a series of knee-jerk reactions to survive
against previously undiscovered behaviour and the increasing ferocity of the
known enemy.

*

Mike sat in the helicopter with the radio switched on, waiting
for BB to call up his approach. Danny sat with him, night vision goggles on and
guarding their backs against the persistent threat of dead prowlers. Where had
they come from in such numbers, he wondered? Maybe there was a camping ground
around here for the hardier type. If they were lucky they had exterminated all those
that existed in the local area by now so they might get a peaceful night
tonight. That’d be a bloody miracle, he thought.

Since this, whatever it was, had kicked off a mere four days
ago, he hadn’t had a single full night’s sleep and it was telling on him. His
appetite was all but gone and he’d had to count to ten to control his temper on
more occasions than he cared to admit. It wasn’t the others, they were all in
the same swim with the sharks, it was those things; every time he encountered
them his desire to go berserker was increasing, clearly an issue of frustration.
He didn’t complain though, the others must be feeling pretty much the same. Who
would be the first to snap? That was the most frightening aspect of all this,
and even more frightening than these bloody things, even the fast ones. Would a
breakdown of one of their own lead to a gap in their defences? Would it be
Cliff? His reaction had been strange - although not surprising after losing
most of his family in that awful way - he was clearly an experienced military
man used to horrors of war, but to segregate himself away in a different cabin
from his immediate helicopter team was a surprising reaction, even though it had
been one of the crew who had killed his wife while protecting him from her
lustful, infected attack. Looking at Mike, Danny could see that he was mulling the
same questions over in his own mind.

The radio crackled on the cockpit speaker and BB’s familiar
voice came over the airwaves.

“Searcher calling Mother, Searcher calling
Mother.
Arrow.”

Pressing the PTT Mike responded.
“Mother
to Searcher.
Archer. Pass your message.”

“GPS says I’m twenty minutes out. Do you want to light
something up showing a suitable landing place?”

“
Wilco
, twenty minutes. As soon as
I hear your bird the light will come on.
Over.”

“Roger, Mother.
Out.”

Mike double-clicked the radio in acknowledgement.

“Sounds like he made it through the storm front alright,”
Mike said, sounding pleased that they had made the long journey alive and
presumably in one piece. Danny just grinned. He liked BB and would be glad to
see him back home - strange that he thought of using that word for the cabin.
“Chuck has some big mother torches hasn’t he?” Mike asked.

“Yes he does,” Danny replied.

“Good. We need to light up as soon as we hear BB’s bird
approaching. Just to make sure we don’t get any surprises when we’re not
watching, let’s get as many out here with guns as we can and more with night
vision goggles to monitor the approaches.”

Stepping back into the warmth of the once again crowded
cabin, Mike explained what was needed to help BB come in safely. Mike picked up
two red towels he would use as marshal sticks, guiding BB down to the ground.
Tom and Rob agreed to monitor the area using night vision goggles while Chuck
and Danny piled outside with guns to make sure the landing went off without a
hitch. With the snow now cleared in a large area around the cabin the chances
of them being ambushed again was slight; surely there couldn’t be too many left
out there for now.