The Dead Walk The Earth (Book 4) (21 page)

They would race out of their base in their blacked out vehicles bristling with weaponry and weighted down with ammunition while ‘Thunderstruck’ blared out at full volume as they headed through the final friendly check-point. Once clear of the base the music would cease, and they would become focussed on their task, but that particular song always helped to psych them up for the coming assault.

He could feel his blood heating up as it coursed through his body, radiating out to his skin and making him flush. His legs were growing restless, and his grip on his rifle tightened as his mind became lost in a time that seemed to have taken place in another life. He could feel his hair begin to prickle and his adrenaline to flow. His aggression levels were starting to rise, and the muscles in his jaw began to flex.

“Taff, change the music,” he demanded suddenly through his clenched teeth. “I’m getting a hard-on here, and someone’s either going to get shot or fucked. Possibly both.”

Taff understood. He grinned into the rear-view mirror, catching sight of Bull’s wild eyes and fearsome expression. Taff knew not to let the man get too excited, and that Bull’s warning was probably very real. He flicked to the next CD, and within seconds the soft tones and angelic voices of ABBA were filling the vehicle, lulling Bull back to being semi-human, and from the brink of becoming an uncontrollable berserker.

Ten minutes later and Stan switched off the music. The fun part of their trip was over, and it was now time to wipe their minds of all distractions and focus on the mission. They had reached a point that was less familiar to them. They had been there in the past, but never stayed for long due to the rapid build-up of infected that their presence inevitably attracted.

That particular stretch of road had been the scene of huge traffic jams as people fled from the larger urban areas and headed for the coast, hoping to find a space aboard the many ships that were rapidly evacuating the mainland. Naturally, with all the noise and commotion as cars sat bumper to bumper and unable to move, the infected had been drawn to the area en-masse. Entire families had been butchered during the feeding frenzy when the dead fell upon them, leaving the roads clogged with thousands of immobile vehicles and the scattered remains of their occupants. Now the people were gone, but the corroded vehicles remained sitting in the road with their doors askew for all eternity.

Taff saw them as they drifted by on either side of him. His concentration was on the road ahead, but a part of his brain remained aware of what was happening on his peripherals. It was a haunting scene. Even now, to see so many abandoned vehicles overgrown with weeds and rust sitting along the silent roads was unsettling even to the veterans. They were a stark reminder of what had once been and how easily it had all been lost.

“Movement, twenty metres, right side,” Stan said in an automated voice.

Taff squinted and saw what Stan had indicated. Two or three dark figures emerged from between a cluster of smashed cars at the roadside. They had undoubtedly heard the low rumble of the approaching SUVs, and been urged to investigate. Within seconds Taff had steered them clear of the infected, narrowly avoiding the outstretched hands as the dead feebly attempted to reach for the vehicle.

Stan immediately turned to check on Kyle and Mark who were following in the rear. By now two of the bodies had stumbled far enough into the vehicle’s path that a collision was unavoidable. One of the dead was caught by a glancing blow and sent spinning off into the darkness. The other was not so lucky. It was hit by the bumper at knee level, breaking its legs in two as its upper body was catapulted forward and into the hood of the SUV. It virtually disintegrated on impact, its brittle and dried out body unable to withstand the violence of the blow.

“You okay, Kyle?” Stan asked into his radio when he saw the dim lights of the vehicle still following them.

“Yeah, no dramas. Just bits of that thing stuck all over us.”

“The vehicle okay?”

“Roger. All good. That’s us complete.”

Keeping the speed to a reasonable pace the team made good time. The drivers took it steady, weaving in and out of the stalled traffic while the passengers acted as additional sets of eyes for them, guiding them through the cluttered roads, and warning them of obstacles and infected further out beyond their immediate field of vision. Stan insisted at setting the speed to a maximum of thirty miles per hour. There was no need for them to race and risk having an accident, and at that pace they could outrun or smash through any crowd of infected, as long as it was not too dense.

An hour before first light, and they had reached and passed through the chicane that marked the limit of their cleared route. Once through the blockade created by two crumbling mini-vans and a couple of cars that created a bottle-neck, the team was in an untamed and dead infested land.

It appeared much the same as the previous forty kilometres had, with the roads becoming overgrown and buildings along the route turning green with moss as their brickwork slowly disintegrated beneath. However, there were now many more obstructions needing to be negotiated. Cars and trucks, some of them crashed and spanning almost the entire lane, littered the route. There were stretches of almost nothing in sight, but then there were sections that were virtually impassable, requiring the team to make detours or slow to a crawl as they circumvented the blockages.

All the while Stan and Kyle marked the obstructions on their maps, noting what the blockage entailed, and how to navigate around it. Before their return journey they would compare notes, ensuring that they had both the exact same and accurate information.

By now they had left the coast road behind and were headed on a bearing that took them approximately southeast through hilly terrain that was criss-crossed with an array of narrow single lane roads, forcing the drivers to slow the vehicles to little more than walking speed in some places. Then within just a few kilometres, they would emerge onto wider dual carriageways that were still cluttered with debris and static vehicles, but were able to make better progress.

The constant vigilance, avoidance of clusters of the infected, and changes in speed and direction, was beginning to grind down the drivers. An hour after dawn had broken Stan announced that they would halt for a while in order for Taff and Mark to get some food and rest. They had roughly sixty to seventy kilometres to go before the rendezvous with Charlie, and having covered the ground much quicker than anticipated, Stan believed that they could afford to take a break.

Bull welcomed the idea with glee, rubbing his hands together and congratulating Stan on his leadership skills. The prospect of being able to stretch his legs and fill his stomach always managed to lift his morale. 

Stan identified a small service station nestled amongst a number of roadside cafes and workshops—a tiny island of civilisation that was surrounded by the wilderness. The road ahead appeared relatively clear, with only a few rusting hulks that had once veered into the central reservation and twisting the metal barriers while setting fire to a wide swathe of the ground around the cars. The occupants were undoubtedly still trapped inside when the vehicles burst into flames.

On the right of the road the land sloped away into a shallow valley. At its centre there was a small built-up area approximately three kilometres away. The town looked decayed and covered with greenery that sprouted from every crevice. Through his binoculars Stan could not see much other than the moss covered rooftops and blackened facades of burnt out buildings, but he did not doubt that the streets and houses would be infested with the dead. He did not need to see them. He had witnessed on so many occasions how they had a habit of congregating in the urban areas for himself.

To the left and behind the service station the ground steadily rose up towards the green and rocky hills, partially covered with clumps of trees while their peaks remained shrouded in the dawn mist. At one point in time he would have seen numerous dots of white scattered across the hillsides as sheep grazed their way over the windswept slopes. Now the land was bare; the cattle and farmers long since gone.

Stan and Bull moved forward, leaving the others at the roadside to cover the rear. The slip road leading into the service station was short, only ten metres long before they were standing on the forecourt of the fuelling area. The pumps stood silent, their nozzles hanging from their brackets or discarded onto the floor after being drained of all their petrol and diesel. The concrete of the forecourt was covered with creeping vines and sapling trees that had made a home for themselves in the cracks that had appeared over time. To the left was the car wash, and further on from the pumps was the main building where people would have paid for their fuel and bought snacks for their journey.

Bull edged forward, avoiding the thousands of pieces of tiny glass cubes that covered the ground as he passed by an empty car, its windows shattered, and its driver’s door hanging open. He paused to take a quick look inside, ensuring that there was nothing there that would pose a threat from the rear. He continued, sweeping around to the right of the pumps while Stan pushed to the left, covering the entire area between them, and then converging on the smashed entrance leading into the main building of the station.

It was dark inside, but enough light was filtering through for them to be able to see the first few metres of the interior. The place had been ransacked. Anything of use had long since been carted away by looters, leaving behind nothing but items such as gossip magazines and novelty keyrings and cuddly toys that had no place in the new world. The free-standing shelves in the centre of the store had been thrown over, spilling books and newspapers across the floor, their pages now faded and covered with mildew. More debris was piled up further in. A coffee machine lying on its side, battered and wrenched open, and a wall mounted fridge had been ripped away from its brackets and now lay straddled across the pay counter.

Bull frowned. It seemed odd that someone had found the time to go to such efforts of vandalism with all that was going on, but it was nothing new. He had witnessed the same sort of thing many times over the years. Some people just seemed to have their priorities a little muddled up, he supposed. He stepped through the twisted and empty frames of the door, his rifle pointing into the darkness.

Stan followed him in. They both stood still for a while, listening and watching for movement. The only sound was the faint moan of the wind as it swept through the building from the open doors and the smashed windows. There was a sudden creak from above them, and then a thud as a white shapeless object dropped onto the rusted metal shelves in the centre of the room. The foam ceiling tiles, having become waterlogged through years of rain seeping in through the roof, were swollen and dropping from their fittings.

There were a few bodies inside, torn apart and scattered over the floor. Skulls and mangled ribcages picked clean of their flesh lay discarded amongst the debris. Nothing of the people who had taken shelter there remained except for their gnawed bones and bloodstained clothing. Stan looked down and saw a child’s shoe lying in the dust at his feet, the tibia and fibula bones still protruding.

Bull reached down and picked up one of the newspapers from the floor. It was dry and brittle with its pages shrivelled and tinged brown, but he was still able to make out the headline on the first page. He shook his head and huffed as he read, ‘
The Dead Walk’.

“No fucking shit.”

Something reacted to the sound of his voice. From behind the counter there came a noise—the sound of something shifting along the dust coated floor tiles. Bull dropped the newspaper and brought his rifle up, aiming at the fridge that was lying across the counter.

Stan moved further in, tiptoeing to his left as Bull stepped forward to investigate the noise. The fridge was shifting very slightly as the scuffing sound continued. Something was trapped beneath it and unable to break free. Stan reached the left hand side of the counter and leaned over, peering into the area where the service station attendants would have once stood. It was dark; the fridge and the counter preventing the light from outside reaching beyond the serving point, but he instantly saw the legs and lower body.

“It’s got its hand stuck,” he whispered across to Bull who was standing to the side of the counter. “It can’t get out.”

The body of a man was squatting beside the cashier’s point. Its arm was wedged beneath the heavy fridge, crushed and entangled amongst the broken and twisted pipes of the evaporator and compressor. At the sound of Stan’s voice it lurched forward, becoming more visible as its face and shoulders thrust out from the gloom, its free hand reaching out towards Stan as he stood and watched. It growled and thrashed its head, its mangled face and long bony claws making it appear more like a demon than a human being. It wrenched itself forward again and again in a vain attempt to free itself. The remains of its shirt was tearing and the bones beneath creaking, but the fridge refused to let go.

“He must’ve been stuck here for a while,” Bull pondered. He could see a number of wounds around the man’s head and neck, and there was a screwdriver embedded into the area at the back of his skull where the head joined onto the spine. Someone had tried to finish the reanimated body off at some point but failed. “You think he worked here?”

“Do you care?”

“No, not really,” he replied. “Just curious.”

He leaned further across the counter while the dead man’s attention remained fixed upon Stan. Without any further consideration Bull reached down, grasping the corpse’s head in his hands and twisting it to the point of maximum resistance. With a grunt Bull applied more force, feeling the bones of the man’s neck crack and groan against his palms. There was a sharp snap as the head suddenly turned almost one-hundred and eighty degrees. The corpse’s legs lost all their strength and control and slipped from beneath it, the feet skidding along the floor and sending up a small cloud of dust. Bull let go of the head and allowed the body to slump, its trapped arm causing it to stay partially upright as the remains of the man continued to hang from the counter.