The Dead Walk The Earth II (3 page)

At the far side was a counter and hotplate, and judging by the extent of the damage to that part of the room, Tina surmised that the fire in that area had been at its most intense. In amongst the detritus, she could see what she believed were a number of bodies. They were burned beyond recognition, and had become fused to the floor in a sea of solidified ash and melted plastic. In a number of places, she noted the pale bones of hands and legs jutting out from the mess, and the longer she stared, the more she was able to see. Some of the blackened bodies were still moving. Only very slightly, but enough for Tina to see the twitching of bony fingers and writhing legs.

She watched for a moment, unsure whether to run from the room or not. Eventually, she concluded that they were no threat to her. Somehow, some of them had managed to survive the fire but their bodies were too badly damaged for them to move. She wondered if they had already been infected when they had been engulfed, or if they had reanimated after being killed in the blaze. She was curious but felt no urge to get any closer to investigate.

Set into the far wall of the canteen was a row of large windows that stretched the length of the room. They were discoloured and obscured from the smoke but a few patches remained clear enough for Tina to see that they looked out over an empty part of the car park. There was no sign of the infected around that side of the building and she hoped it denoted the area was a staff parking zone or loading bay and sealed off from the public. She would consider that side to be a potential escape route should they need it.

The final door in the hallway led out onto a platform that overlooked a spacious warehouse. The skylights high above dimly lighted it and it was hard for her to make out any details beyond the first few metres. From her higher position, she saw a few rows of stacked goods in front of her but they soon faded into blackness as they were swallowed up by shadow. She could not be sure of the extent of the place due to the low light but she was confident that given the fact that it was a supply depot for a supermarket chain and the dimensions of the exterior walls, it would be of a substantial size.

Unfortunately, it seemed that the flames had not spared the warehouse either. As in the cafeteria and the corridor behind her, the smell of fire was thick in the air. Many of the shelves closest to her had collapsed and their contents had been scattered and consumed by the searing heat. It was impossible to see any further and she could not tell whether the rest of the storage area had suffered the same fate.

She stayed by the door and listened for a while. There was no way to tell if there were any infected inside and the only realistic way of finding out would be to make her own presence known. For the moment though, she would remain unannounced.

She secured the door and made her way back to the reception area. She paused on the far side of the receptionist’s desk and peered out through the entrance and over the parking area. The dead were still there but they were no longer hunting. They had gone back to their mindless meandering.

Christopher was still slumped against the wall and snoring noisily. His large stomach was rising and falling with each loud intake of air.

“Useless bastard,” she grunted under her breath as she walked by him and towards the open doorway to his left.

On the other side, she discovered a flight of stairs that led up to a number of spacious offices. The Managers and their assistants had clearly enjoyed their comforts with expensive furnishings and appliances adorning each room. Every office was laid out in a manner that befitted a bank manager rather than a supermarket supply office.

In a small kitchenette at the far end of a corridor that dissected the managerial offices, Tina found a fridge loaded with rotted food. The smell made her screw her face up in disgust but the three bottles of water that she noticed sitting in the rack, were quickly snatched up before the fridge door was slammed shut.

In the cupboards, she found mouldy loafs of bread and cakes along with other unrecognisable substances that had perished through time. They were of no use to anyone, but the five tins of tuna and three sachets of dried fruit were akin to a discovery of buried treasure. She was happy with her find. They could at least stay there for the night and get some food and rest. Most importantly, there were no indications that the ravenous infected were inside the building.

They would hide there and assess the situation in the morning.

2

The world was a very different place now. Even after just four months since the plague had forced the remains of humanity to seek shelter and hide from the roaming dead, the landscape had changed considerably. Every manmade structure was already beginning to blend into the background of nature. The colours were fading and the sharp edges were starting to soften. Weeds and wild flowers sprouted from every crack and crevice and slowly began to spread their way out over the remnants of civilisation.

Sitting on the hilltop, the two of them watched the small row of stores that backed onto a sprawling housing estate. The infected were everywhere but the living men remained unnoticed. From their vantage point, they could see for a great distance in all directions and no matter which way they looked, shadowy figures stumbled through the streets or sat idle, staring at the floor.

“It’s quiet, isn’t it,” Bull grunted.

“Yeah,” Danny replied as he looked out over the jumble of rooftops. “To be honest, I find it quite pleasant.”

Bull looked at him curiously for a moment and then turned his attention back to the street below them.

“Well, if you ignore the fact that there are dead people walking about everywhere you look, it’s rather tranquil,” Danny continued in way of explanation.

Bull nodded. He understood what Danny was saying and after a moment of reflection and comparing the old world to the new, he could see his friend’s point. The world had become a much quieter place. The harsh noises of human society had disappeared and had been replaced with the soft murmur of the natural Earth. However, no matter how hard he tried, it was difficult for him to block out the reality of the situation for very long.

A sharp clang followed by a rumbling grunt that emitted from the foot of the hill dragged him back to reality. For the past couple of hours, they had been resting in the shade of a tree and out of the midday sun. It was the height of summer, a heat wave was in the process of parching the land, and as usual, the men were lying up during the hours of daylight.

At the bottom of the slope, a row of parked cars at the roadside demarcated the end of the rural and the start of the urban areas. The partially decomposed corpse of a man sat in the driver’s seat of one of the vehicles and endlessly turned the wheel through its hands. It pushed and pulled at the gears and levers and it had even managed to fasten the seatbelt over its torn and bony chest.

“They’re not the brightest of creatures, are they?” Bull noted.

“It’s probably been sitting there for weeks,” Danny pointed out. “You know how they are. They’re persistent.”

“Stupid more like,” Bull replied. “What’s Bill Gates doing?”

Danny panned to the right with his binoculars. Further along the street and sitting on a bench in front of a shop window that still displayed the latest deals on electronics and software, another of the reanimated corpses sat. In its hands, it held a laptop computer and it repeatedly tapped away at the keys as though typing up a document or writing out an email. Now and then, it would appear confused and begin examining the underside of the device as if checking to see if the notebook was connected to a power source.

“No change,” Danny replied as he studied the figure. “I think he’s still trying to remember his Facebook password.”

Bull sniggered beside him. He rolled on to his back and let out a long sigh as he stared up at the branches that gently swayed above them. He was beginning to feel bored and wished that the night would hurry up and arrive so that they could move again.

“I don’t think either of us is going to win this bet, Danny. Those things are so stupid that they’ll stay there until their bodies rot from underneath them.”

They had been on their patrol for almost three weeks. Their mission was to reconnoitre the harbour at Portsmouth and see whether the airfield at Farnborough was still intact. One of their secondary tasks was to check the various routes leading north towards London. Moving at night and lying up during the daytime, Bull, Danny, and Marty drifted through the desolate countryside like a band of ghosts as they moved from one place to the next and gathered the information that they needed. They avoided the living as well as the dead and on many occasions, they had found themselves in close proximity to both. Their orders were clear and they were to avoid contact at all costs.

Remaining tucked away in the shadows, they had watched as survivors scavenged and did what they could and must to stay alive. It was clear that there were still a lot of living people in the country but they were well aware that their numbers steadily declined on a daily basis. No one could hide forever and if there was one thing that they could count on, it was that eventually the infected would somehow find them.

It was never the speed or intelligence of the dead that was a concern. It was always their numbers and their tenacity. If a living person was seen or a hideout discovered, hordes of rotting corpses would converge on to the spot. Only people with strong defences and a means of escape had a chance at survival once they were detected.

While Marty took his turn to sleep, Danny and Bull had been watching the infected in the streets below. At first, they had made a childish game of naming the wandering figures after well-known celebrities and taking it in turns to identify which of the reanimated bodies the other was referring to. Once they were bored of that, a bet was made on which of the two infected, ‘Bill Gates’ with the computer or ‘Michael Schumacher’ in the car, would be the first to lose interest in what they were doing and move onto something else.

“I still can’t find Simon Cowell,” Danny said quietly and beginning to lose interest.

“He’s long gone, mate. You couldn’t miss him though. He had his trousers pulled up to his neck and a flat-top that would make Grace Jones envious.”

“Christ knows how I missed that one then.”

“I’d best wake up Sleeping Beauty over there,” Bull declared as he sat up and began to crawl towards the tree and the snoring mound at its base.

He looked down on Marty and consciously took note of the loaded pistol that his slumbering friend clutched in his hand. In the current state of the world, awakening someone with a sudden noise or movement could easily be enough to result in a knee-jerk reaction, and Bull did not savour the idea of being shot by one of his teammates because they were in a confused state. He got down low to the ground and saddled up beside him, positioning himself in a way that afforded him the ability to restrain his friend should he need to.

“Marty,” he whispered as he reached out to him and shook his shoulder.

Marty instantly woke with a start. Bull watched him for a few seconds and eyed the pistol in his hand but he did not show any indication of raising the weapon.

“It’s your stag, mate,” Bull continued, informing him that it was his turn to stand guard.

“What, now?”

“No, next fucking Tuesday. I just thought I’d wake you up a week early for a laugh. Get up, dick head.”

“Fuck sake,” Marty grunted sleepily.

Bull crawled back over to Danny while Marty slowly awoke. He turned around to check on him and watched in silence for a moment as his friend stretched and scratched at his head. Marty checked his watch and then peered up through the branches and leaves of the tree to check on the position of the sun. It was still a few more hours before nightfall and he considered rolling over and going back to sleep.

“Don’t even think about it,” Bull whispered across to him. “It’s your turn to keep an eye out while I get some kip.”

Marty rubbed at his eyes and began to crawl forward towards the others. He nestled up beside them on his stomach and peered through the grass and down the hill.

“Anything happening down there?”

“Nothing,” Bull shook his head. “You sure it’s worth going down there?”

“It’s worth a look,” Marty shrugged. “It’s the last built-up area between us and the pick-up point so it would be rude not to have a rummage about. Besides, it’s Danny who’s mad-keen to go down there.”

“I grew up not far from here,” Danny said quietly when he felt Bull’s questioning gaze fall upon him.

“You’re not getting all sentimental on us are you, Danny?”

“Something like that,” he shrugged. “Besides, that check-point down at the far end of the street may have something worth taking.”

Bull looked across to his right and at the collapsed barriers. The bullet riddled military vehicles sat dark and silent with smashed windows and punctured tyres, their doors askew and their occupants long gone. There were dozens of bodies lying all around the position and it was clear that the soldiers had fought valiantly. It had done them no use and the infected had trampled the remains of the defences beneath their decaying feet while they feasted upon the overwhelmed troops.

As darkness began to fall, the three of them prepared to move. Instinctively, they silently checked that their weapons were ready and their equipment was secure with all their pouches fastened and their straps tucked away.

“Anything happens and we get split, make your way back here,” Marty whispered back to them and pointed at the tree. “This will be the ERV. Wait ten minutes, if possible, then move to the pick-up.”

Danny and Bull signalled their acknowledgement with their thumbs raised.

Marty stepped out to the front and began leading them down the grassy hill and towards the row of cars. The sky in the west was still a pale blue and afforded them with enough light to be able to negotiate their way down to the streets without overexposing themselves, but they knew that they would not have that luxury for much longer. The sun had long since vanished beneath the horizon and the light was fading fast. The heat of the day was rapidly wilting from the air and being replaced by a fresh breeze as darkness made its way across the night sky and changed the landscape to various dark shades of blue and grey.

Danny followed at the rear and savoured the feeling of the cool night against his flushed skin while to his left, he could just make out the jerky movements of ‘Schumacher’ still sitting behind the steering wheel of the car. The thing was never going to move. It was far too engrossed in what it was doing.

I just missed out on five Snickers bars because of you
, Danny realised.

Down at street level they kept themselves hidden behind the row of parked vehicles and crept along towards the far end of the road. To their left, where the countryside gave way to the suburbs of the small rural town, the infected lurked. The sounds of them crashing through the darkened avenues and stumbling over debris rang out through the narrow channels within the housing estate. Their voices echoed for great distances as they moaned and cried out into the silence that surrounded them. With darkness falling, the noises of the night seemed to travel further and the three men had to be all the more careful with every step.

Every few metres they would stop while they scanned the area and listened for any sign that they had been detected. Marty was already beginning to wonder why he had felt obliged to allow Danny to indulge his nostalgically fuelled curiosity, but they were almost there now and it would be just as easy to continue, as it would be to turn back.

The three of them sat tucked away behind a vehicle and waiting as the last of the light steadily faded. The sky above them was already revealing the first of its glittering stars and as their natural night vision grew, Marty and the others were able to see more details of their surroundings. After a while, they could see clearly in both directions and as far as they could tell there were no infected in their immediate area.

They stepped out from the row of cars and began to cross over towards the darkened shops and the checkpoint to their right. Danny paused and kept an eye on the area as he covered the others. As he turned to check their rear, he almost yelled out in surprise.

All along the horizon at the top of the hill he could see human shaped silhouettes. He did not need a second glance to see that they were dozens of the infected. Where they had come from he had no idea, but they were headed towards the houses and Danny and the others were about to be trapped between the rural and urban areas, hemmed in by the dead.

He stopped and hissed to the others to grab their attention. Marty froze to the spot and turned to see what was happening and instantly recognised the threat. Bull too had seen them and the three of them took cover behind the nearest of the cars.

“Where the fuck did they come from?” Bull gasped as he peeked over the vehicle’s roof and up at the hill.

Danny shook his head.

“Christ knows, mate, but in less than a minute this street is going to be full to the brim with them.”

There were more of them coming from over the rise and the first of their ranks were quickly travelling down the slope and towards the row of cars. They staggered and stumbled, grunting as they advanced towards the built-up area.

“It’s an entire herd of them,” Bull hissed.

Marty looked back across the road and towards the buildings. They had no choice but try to stay out of sight and hope that the swarm would pass them by. He could not think of how or why they had suddenly appeared and he was sure that they had done nothing to attract their attention.

“Come on,” he whispered as he raised himself into a crouch.