The Dead Walk The Earth (Book 4) (23 page)

Al peered down and saw that the tangles of wire were no match for the dead. Although the coils were virtually blocking off the gate, they did nothing to deter the thousands of corpses that pushed themselves through the razor sharp barbs, uncaring to the flesh that was being stripped and torn from their bones.

“Here,”
a voice called from behind them.

Al turned and at first had no idea what he was looking at. A large white box with arms and legs seemingly sprouting from beneath it was making its way along the grated walkway. He saw Tina’s face behind them with more strange objects following.

Paul and Al stepped aside as the two men that were carrying the fridge stopped at the area above the gate and hurled it over the side. The bulky appliance dropped and crashed onto the heads of a number of the infected who were tightly packed together directly below them. It landed just a metre in front of the gate, flattening a few of the corpses, and sending others flying out from the impact point.

“Get back,” Tina yelled as more of the militia arrived, carrying heavy equipment. “Clear the way. Move.”

Within minutes the area around the outside of the western gate began to resemble a junkyard. There were more fridges added to the pile along with washing machines, beds, couches, and even some of the panels and engine parts from the old broken down Lynx helicopter. Additional rolls of barbed wire were hurled over the side landing all around and on top of the obstacle that was gradually growing into a small mountain. 

“Shit, Tina,” Paul yelled. “We need to do something. That isn’t going to hold them back. We need to get the fuck out of here, soon.”

Down beneath the gate the dead were scrambling over and tearing at the blockades. Some of them were becoming entangled amongst the wire or trapped as the heavy equipment shifted. More of them were scurrying over the others, attempting to reach the walls and continue with their relentless assault.

“Just hold them off for as long as you can,” Tina ordered as she grabbed Al by the shoulder, leading him away. “Get everyone stood to and ready to bug out.”

They were headed for the entrance to the tunnel. Neither of them needed to speak or discuss what they were doing. Al could see the desperation of the situation and knew that they were going out to find a route through the city, regardless of the fact that the others had still not returned. Whether they were alive or dead, someone needed to go back out there and find a way through.

A few hundred metres into the dark passage beneath the base, they heard movement up ahead accompanied with groans and muttering.

“Greg, is that you?” Tina called into the gloom.

“Yeah, it’s us,”
the echoing voice replied.

Soon, Al and Tina could see the faint outline of figures moving in their direction. It looked as though they were carrying someone.

“What happened?”

One of the militia who had travelled out with them was needing to be supported by Flash and another. The man was hurt and limping badly. Sebastian was at the rear, his dog close to his side on a short leash while Greg was a few metres in front.

“Don’t worry, it isn’t a bite,” Greg panted as he came to a stop. “But he’ll need some treatment before infection sets in. Ripped his leg open from the calf to the knee. There’s all kinds of nasty shit down there.”

“Who is it?”

“Ben,” Greg replied in a hushed voice. “He’ll lose the leg if we don’t get him treated. We need to get him to the clinic, ASAP.”

“What about the exit point?”

Greg shook his head dejectedly as they turned and headed back towards the base. Ben, the militiaman, was groaning and hissing with each step that he was forced to take, the dressing around his lower limb dripping with blood.

“Couldn’t find one,” Greg continued in a pant. “We were going round in circles down there. Some of the tunnels have collapsed, and other parts are wide open to the surface from the bombing that the army and air-force did. A group of those bastards were down there waiting for us. We didn’t see them until it was too late and they jumped us.”

“Fuck,” Al sighed. “Anyone bitten? Have you checked?”

“Of course I fucking checked,” Greg snapped. “No bites. Just Ben spanked in on a lump of iron when we were legging it.”

“How far did you get?”

“A little further on from where you met that bloke, I think. That’s when we were attacked. I’m not sure if the sewers are a good option, Tina.”

“We don’t have a choice. We have to find a way through because we’ll never make it on the surface.”

“We need to go back down there,” Al grumbled as they reached the tunnel’s entrance. “That western gate is too weak to hold out.”

“There was one tunnel that we were going to check, but that’s where we got jumped. It seemed to be headed in the right direction, but we couldn’t get through. You should at least give it a while to settle down in there,” Greg advised. “We stirred up a bit of a hornet’s nest with the noise we made.”

“Show me on the sketch,” Al demanded.

Greg pulled out the diagram that Al had drawn from memory when he and Tommy had returned from the city the day before. He clicked his light and shone it down onto the tattered piece of paper. There were now a lot of additions to the map, having been drawn on by Greg during his search. To Al, the scrap of paper that was supposed to show them a way out was now starting to resemble a bowl of spaghetti. 

“Here,” Greg said, pointing to a junction with a question mark displayed over it and then indicated the rest of the sketched tunnels with a sweep of his hand. “These others are no good. They’re either heading the wrong way, or they’re blocked or collapsed. But like I said, those things are down there and we couldn’t go any further.”

“Are there many more of them, do you think?”

“No idea. We didn’t hang around to find out. But it sounded like there were a lot of them,” Greg nodded. “We managed to kill the ones that jumped on us, but we could hear more of them coming through the tunnels as we were bugging out. The place could be thick with those bastards now. I don’t recommend going back in there for a while if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“We really don’t have time to be sitting on our arses right now.”

“We’ll have to make the time,” Tina spat. “If Greg says it’s too dangerous, then we wait. I’m not risking lives unnecessarily.”

They were back inside the base now, dragging the wounded man towards the inner complex and the clinic.

“What’s happening on the western gate?” Greg asked when he heard the sporadic firing and shouting.

“Starting to collapse,” Al replied as he watched Flash disappear into the complex with Ben. “Not sure how long it will hold, so we need to get into the sewers and find a way out once we’ve given it a soak period.”

“Good idea,” Greg replied, satisfied that he had made his point and it had been received. “Let it settle, or you’ll just end up as another statistic, mate. I’ll come with you when you go.”

Al nodded, but once again he felt that they were wasting time.

12

“Keep left, Taff. You’ve got more static vehicles coming up on the right. Take it steady,” Stan ordered.

“This is getting fucking silly,” Taff growled as he gently pressed his foot down against the brake and clutch, dropping them into a lower gear.

The SUV lurched slightly, almost unnoticeably, as Taff carefully lifted his weight off the clutch. The engine’s noise went into a slightly higher pitch, but remained well contained within the sound-proofing that had been fitted into the engine compartments of each of the vehicles. Taff’s manoeuvre was known as a sustained gear change, designed to keep the vehicle moving forward without any change in speed, but affording them an increase in instant power if they needed it due to the lower gear.

“At least it isn’t raining,” Bull grunted from the rear.

“You had to fucking say it, didn’t you?” Taff instantly spat back at him. “You just couldn’t keep your big mouth shut.”

“What?” Bull replied, smiling and feigning ignorance.

British soldiers, especially while on operations or manoeuvres and living in the open air, always refused to acknowledge the possibility of rain. Even when the clouds above them were thick and dark, and speaking loudly for themselves and the coming downpour, the troops on the ground would still not utter the dreaded word. That is, all but one. In every unit there was always a soldier that revelled in going against the flow and upsetting the apple-cart. Bull was such a man. While even Stan, a man of few emotions and even fewer superstitions, would remain humbly quiet about the matter, Bull could not resist the urge to tempt fate and deliberately upset those around him.

“Prick.”

“What’s up?” Bull scoffed with a grin. “You’re a Welshman. You grew up in a country that’s so wet, it’s almost tropical.”

“You know the rules, dickhead. Never say the ‘R’ word.”

Within minutes the first splashes began to patter against the windscreen, steadily building up in intensity until Taff had to admit defeat.

“Bull, you’re a wanker,” he groaned as he switched on the wipers.

“You love me really.”

It had been a long day. All of them were tired, and unless they made it to the rendezvous soon, they would need to find somewhere to go firm for the night. They were moving much slower than any of them would have preferred, and it was beginning to cause tension within the vehicles as the men grew weary.

By now the sky above them was dark with thick cloud cover as the rain soaked the ground, preventing any light from the moon and stars reaching the silent Earth beneath. The road ahead was nothing but a canvas of blackness. It was impossible to see what lay beyond the bumper of the vehicles with the naked eye, and using their headlights at this point was out of the question. To do so would be a glowing invitation to any eyes that saw them in an otherwise dark landscape.

They were now flitting between the rural and urban areas with increased frequency as they headed deeper into the mainland. Despite the blockages in the roads, they did their best to avoid being filtered into the more built-up parts of the towns, keeping to the smaller roads and choosing to negotiate their way through the thousands of stalled cars rather than taking the wider carriageways.

Stan had hoped for them to have reached the rendezvous with Charlie before last light, but it was proving to be a much more difficult task than they had anticipated. None of them had ventured this far inland over the past eleven years and especially by vehicle. Charlie himself, along with his team, had insisted that they moved on foot across country and avoiding the roads along with the inherent complications that vehicles brought with them. Stan and the others, however, did not have the luxury of time and needed to use their SUVs.

Taff was driving the lead vehicle with Stan sitting in the passenger seat. Both of them were wearing night-vision goggles, but as Taff was having to concentrate on driving and what lay immediately ahead of them, Stan was able to give him more of a heads up on what was further along on their route.

The roads, like most main routes that criss-crossed the mainland, were clogged with debris and abandoned vehicles. Even nature had become an impenetrable barrier in some places. Fallen trees and overgrown foliage choked the narrower lanes for miles in some areas, and other roads were virtually impassable, needing to be bypassed completely and inevitably adding time to their journey.

Then there were the crowds of infected. On a number of occasions, the team had needed to retrace their tracks as the road ahead was blocked with masses of shambling corpses. They had been swamped by them earlier in the day, becoming completely surrounded as thousands of rotting hands and faces beat at the vehicles. With no other choice the team had ploughed on ahead, smashing their way through the dense throngs, crushing their bodies beneath the wheels, and grinding them into the tarmac.

The exterior of the two SUVs soon began to appear as though they had been driven through an abattoir. Smears of oozing blood and putrid human tissue covered every surface with limbs and other body parts trapped within the grills and wheel arches. For more than five kilometres, Taff had driven his vehicle while staring at the dismembered head of a woman that was snagged by one of the windscreen wipers.

The majority of the navigation needed to be done with maps and atlases that no longer accurately related to what was on the ground. As a result, a lot of guess work was involved, using gut instincts and their natural sense of direction. While the vehicle commanders attempted to find alternate routes to the impassable roads, the drivers gritted their teeth and kept them mobile, never allowing them to stop in fear of never being able to get moving again. It was a frustrating time, and doubt inevitably began to set in. The only thing that Stan was able to completely rely on was his compass. As long as they were headed in the general direction that they needed, and kept an eye on the mileage, they hoped to pick up signs as they drew nearer to the rendezvous.

Taff gripped the wheel and clenched his teeth as he steered the vehicle over to the left of the road. The gap was narrow, forcing him to bring the vehicle to a virtual crawl. On the right, a cluster of cars had collided. It appeared that they had been travelling in opposite directions, probably at speed, and had crashed head on into one another. Fine details were hard to see through the green glow of the NVGs, but judging by the severity of the wreckage, fatalities had most certainly been a result. Now the vehicles sat rusted and fused together, their passengers nowhere to be seen, having joined the ranks of the dead legions, or been consumed by wandering corpses.

“It’s as black as a witch’s tit out here,” Taff grumbled, keeping an eye on the dark hedges on either side of them as he cleared the wreckage and began to increase his speed. “It’s going to take forever at this rate.”

“We’ve got about another ten Ks to go, I think,” Stan replied as he held his light over the map and traced the route. “It’s hard to tell, though. We haven’t seen a landmark for the past few hours. All we have to go on is the trip meter.”

Taff glanced down at the dimly lit dashboard. He could just about read the digits that informed him of the mileage that they had covered since setting off. They had planned their primary route, along with three alternatives, and had studied the roads in detail before departing from the ferry. They all knew the distances of each, but with the amount of detours they had needed to take, along with the fact that some of them had been in darkness, it was hard to be sure of the distance remaining before they reached the designated rendezvous with Charlie.

They were making their way along a dual carriageway that twisted its way through the countryside. Without their lights, their progress had been severely impeded. There was just far too much debris blocking the roads. Added with the clusters of walking corpses that sometimes suddenly appeared in front of them, it was taking many more hours than they had predicted.

“You sure about the distance?”

“Yeah,” Stan nodded. “I think so.”

“I hope you’re right, mate, because I’m in serious need of a shit. I’m drawing pictures in my pants with a blunt crayon here.”

From the rear seats, a number of chuckling snorts emitted. Bull leaned forward and patted his friend on the shoulder.

“Shame you can’t do what I did, mate. You’d feel much better.”

Taff grimaced. The odour suddenly came back to him in its entirety even though Bull’s offense had been ejected through the window more than two hours ago. Unable to risk pulling over to the roadside, Bull had relieved himself into a plastic container out of desperation. Before jettisoning the foul smelling object, he had made a point of waving it around under the noses of Taff and Stan sitting in the front seats.

“You’re just a gopping creature,” Taff spat back at him. “I can still smell it. I think the stink got into my beard and nostril hairs.”

Bull began to laugh.

“Yeah, well, when you got to go, you got to go.”

“You only did it to piss us off. You should’ve gone before we set out.”

“I didn’t need to go then.”

There was a sudden jolt and a deep thud. Immediately, the vehicle dipped on the left-hand side and lurched towards the edge of the road. Taff compensated, twisting the wheel to the right and increasing the power to the engine and preventing them from going into a spin. The SUV juddered, becoming harder to control, but Taff managed to straighten them out and brought them back to the centre of the road.

“Bollocks,” he groaned, listening to the rapid thumps coming from the front of the vehicle. “A blow out.”

“Keep going,” Stan demanded while clicking his radio so that Kyle and Mark could hear his commands. “We’ve got a flat. Push through, push through.”

Up until then, they had been blessed with good fortune, suffering no problems with the wheels on either vehicle despite the corpses and numerous obstacles they had needed to drive through and over during their journey. Now in the dark wilderness, with only a short distance to go, it seemed that their luck had finally ran out.

Taff knew that it was bound to happen at some point, but like the rain, he had never wanted to acknowledge the possibility. Regardless of their care and maintenance, the vehicles were old and not in the best condition, and the tyres were no different. Coupled with the multitude of hazards and debris littering their path, it was inevitable that one of them would eventually succumb to the harsh road conditions.

Stan leaned forward and began to scan the road ahead and the land to their left and right. He wanted to be sure that they had not driven into an ambush. It was unlikely, but he did not want to take anything for granted. If they were to stop here to change the tyre, they could very well be sitting right in the middle of a killing zone. There were very few people left on the mainland now, but he was certain that those who had survived had done so by doing everything and anything they could in order to stay alive. Killing others and taking what they have would certainly be part of a survival strategy for some.

The thumping and shuddering persisted as Taff continued to fight with the steering wheel, keeping his foot pressed down hard on the accelerator as their speed increased. He was growling through gritted teeth, the muscles in his forearms burning with the strain. From what he could see through his limited field of vision, the road ahead appeared clear, but all that could change in an instant, and he prayed that he would not need to swerve suddenly. If there was a blockage ahead, he would undoubtedly lose control trying to veer around it.

“Stop, stop, stop,” Stan eventually called into the radio, satisfied that they had cleared any potential ambush positions.

They had only travelled a few hundred metres, but it had seemed much further for Taff. On hearing Stan’s command, he eased off the pedal, and the SUV instantly began to lose speed. He did not need to use the brakes, and within seconds they had come to a halt, the second vehicle closing up to a distance of just a few metres behind to provide support, and if need be, act as an extraction vehicle for the crew in the lead SUV.

There was no need for words to be spoken. Everyone in the team knew the drill and their part in the manoeuvre. Stan and Bull jumped from the vehicle on the left-hand side, while Taff climbed out on the right. There was no point in him remaining behind the wheel. The SUV was not going anywhere even if he wanted it to. The tyre needed to be changed as quickly as possible, and every available hand was needed.

Stan and Kyle took up their positions, providing security and watching the ground around them. It was still raining, and the pattering of the water against the road and the drum of the droplets hitting the vehicles was creating a noise that diminished their ability to hear beyond a few metres. Through their NVGs, they watched the road to their front and rear and the dark trees and bushes on either side.

Within just a few seconds, Bull had already loosened the locking nuts of the wheel while Taff began hauling the heavy jack from the rear of the vehicle, manoeuvring it into position and sliding it beneath the axle. As Taff pumped hard with the jack handle, the SUV rapidly rising from the ground, Bull ran to the rear and pulled the nearest spare tyre from the boot compartment. It bounced against the tarmac reassuringly showing no signs of an air leak or damage. By now Taff had removed the damaged wheel, discarding it to the side and preparing to receive the replacement from Bull. They had practiced and performed the drill a thousand times over the years, reaching the point when they could change out a damaged tyre within less than two minutes, in any road or weather condition.