Undead at Heart (18 page)

“What are they-?” Sam
asked.

“Darkness,” was
Nicola’s response. “They need darkness.”

As if summoned by her
words, a screaming growl sounded from the valley behind them.

James was supposed to
be leading the group, but once he’d told Alan and Andy that it was nothing more
than a straight road leading to the village, they took the responsibility from
him. He was grateful.

Alan and Charlotte
walked at the front, just ahead of James. Debbie and Ryan came behind, Debbie
pushing Heidi’s chair. Behind them were Bert and Doreen, and finally Andy and
Sandra bringing up the rear.

Bert hadn’t slept well
in the cellar - God, none of them had – but he was certainly feeling his age
today. He and Doreen, despite their many walks around the area, leaned on each
other as they walked. She groaned and stumbled occasionally, and he wrapped his
arm more securely around her to help her take her weight off her feet.

Eventually, he had to
ask, “How far is this place, then, lad?”

The group paused as
the sound of his voice caused Alan and James to look back. “Not far. About a
mile,” said James.

“Can you manage,
love?” Bert asked his wife. She nodded and they hobbled on.

The road wound through
the green countryside. Occasionally there were places where the hedge had been
ripped away by the passage of… well, of
them
. Through some of the gaps
they could sometimes see trampled crops. Other times it was slaughtered
livestock.

They rounded one bend,
and again the group came to a halt. There was something in the road. Bert
helped his wife to sit for a moment on the verge and walked up to the front. It
was a body. That is to say, it was the remains of a person, but there was no
head. The ragged flesh of the neck suggested that something had finally bitten
off too much. James was shaking and Charlotte was holding him. Bert had
noticed, even last
night, that
she seemed to have
adopted the boy.

Bert helped Alan to
lift the body to the side of the road. From the looks of it the corpse had once
been a middle-aged man. They didn’t know what else they could do. They were
certainly in no position to carry the body with them until they could find
somewhere more ‘respectful’ than an unkempt grass bank. Mind you, Bert mused,
this would hardly be the last unburied body that would come out of all this
when the dust settled.

He was sure that the
dust
would
settle. An eternal optimist at heart, he firmly believed that
whatever madness had gripped the country this time would blow over, just like
all the others. Hadn’t he outlived the craze for them jackets with big
shoulders, and him in just his donkey jacket? Hadn’t he seen fad after craze
after recession after crisis come and go? This might be slightly different, but
he was a firm believer that whatever happened, it all returned to normal again.
Hell, look at the wars. They’d been the worst things in the world, but now
look. There were youngsters who had no real idea of what had happened, why it
had happened, and who wouldn’t care anyway if you went and told them.

Having moved the body
and folded the arms in as restful a pose as a headless corpse could adopt, Bert
scouted about for the head, but there was no sign of it.

In the end there was
nothing more they could do for it, so he walked back to where Doreen was still
sitting. He felt that somehow he should have done more, but short of being
there to stop those damn things from attacking the poor man in the first place
he didn’t know what it could have been.

Doreen looked worse
than when he left her, and although he heaved, and Andy helped, they couldn’t
get her back onto her feet. “I’m sorry, lads. It’s me hip. It just won’t take
no more.” She looked up into Bert’s eyes and he could see the fear there. “You
better just leave me here,” she told him. “You can’t stay.”

Bert fixed her with a
gaze that communicated how much he loved her, how much he needed her, and all
the other things that had never needed to be said after their 42 years of
marriage.

“Like fuck we will!”
he replied,
then
turned to the group.
“Right, then.
We need some way of carrying my missus with
us. I’m not leaving her.
Any ideas?”

He looked from face to
face, sure that something would be worked out. Something was
always
worked out. He waited, and knew it would come. And it did.

“Oh,
God!”
It came
from James. “I’m so stupid!” He actually slapped his forehead in his moment of
realisation. He turned to Alan and shouted, “Come on, I need your help!” into
his face. Then he ran off back the way they had come. Alan, after a moment’s
surprise and a confirmation nod from Charlotte, ran after him.

They all waited,
wondering what had possessed the boy, but after no more than 10 minutes, they knew.
They heard it before they saw it. It was the unmistakeable clip and clop of a
horse’s hooves on the road. Moments later it came round the corner: a large
dray-horse pulling an old fashioned milk-wagon. James was sitting on the board
at the front, holding the reins with a look of contentment on his face which
made him look much younger even than his 17 years. Alan stood behind him in the
cart, looking nonplussed.

“It’s our
neighbour’s!” James called as he came into view. “They keep Buster in a stable
and I just knew that he would have been all right. They use this sometimes for
delivering the organic milk and for the summer fetes and things like that. Will
this do?”

This last was
addressed to Bert who, like the boy, was grinning wide enough to split his
cheeks. “Oh yes, lad. It’ll do alright. It’ll do just fine!”

James drew the milk
wagon to a halt just in front of where Doreen was sitting. Alan jumped down and
between him and
Andy,
they hoisted Doreen up into the
back. They propped her against the side with some sacking to soften it for her.
Bert was then pulled up by his arms and moved to sit out of the way, with
Doreen, while Heidi was lifted up, still in her chair, and the others all
followed.

Once loaded, Alan
pulled up the tailgate to stop them falling out, and with a ‘chook’ noise and a
flick of the reins, James set the cart into motion once more.

The horse had gone
barely four or five steps when the sky started to darken overhead. Bert looked
up and his heart sank as he watched thunderheads boil from the west and blot
out the blue.

The horse slowed as
the light dimmed, and James let it.  He, like the others, was staring
upwards. His brain was still numb from the events of the last day, but if he
could have plucked out a single coherent thought it would have been,
Oh God,
what now?!

They all sat for a
moment, watching the fine summer’s day replaced with dark wintery clouds, but
then Alan touched his arm and he jumped.

“Go,” said Alan. “I
don’t know what it is, but I doubt it’s anything good. So, go! Drive! We need
to get to wherever we’re going as soon as possible.”

James nodded and
lowered his head to his task. He flicked the reins and Buster started his slow
plod once more. The horse was never going to win any races, but it was at least
faster than walking. And managing the horse gave him something to think about;
something to take his mind
off
everything else. It was
a familiar action: he had grown up helping the Henderson’s with the horse and
had been driving on their rounds with them since he was 12. It was an anchor
which was helping him to stay on the ground when all he wanted to do was float
away.

The day grew darker
and darker, so that, even though it was the clouds which were covering them, it
felt as though they were heading into onrushing darkness. It didn’t matter to
James, though. He knew these lanes well, and when necessary he had driven the
horse in the dark to deliver the milk. Sometimes he would have Mr Henderson
with him, but sometimes, especially after Mr Henderson had his heart-attack, he
had driven these dark lanes with his dad. James fixed on that image, of the
large man sitting by his side, correcting his technique on the reins when
necessary, and used it to blot from his mind the image of the melting mass that
had been his dad’s ending.

The road twisted and
turned and James gave Buster such guidance as he needed. Not much was
necessary, if he was honest. Buster had followed this route even more times than
James. If left to his own devices, he would probably have wandered the route on
his own.

It was full twilight
when they reached the town, and James was surprised to see the first buildings
loom out of the gloom. Yes, he had done this journey in the dark, but he had
always been welcomed by the streetlights and nightlights in some of the houses.
But, the power was out, of course, and there were no lights, just large blank
boxes lining the road.

The sound of Buster’s
hooves echoed off the buildings as they paced between them. No other sound came
from the town.

“Where do you think,
then, lad?” Bert asked from the back of the wagon. “The Farrier?” he asked,
referring to the village pub.

James shook his head.
“No, too many doors, too many windows. I was thinking The Hut.”

Bert nodded approval.
“Good thinking, lad.”

Alan looked from one
to the other, peering through the darkness to see their faces.
“The Hut?
What’s that?”

“You never been to
Little Shotterling, Alan?” asked Bert.

“Well, yeah, through
it, but never, you know, to stay. So what’s ‘The Hut’?”

It was James who
replied. “It’s the scout hut. It has a kitchen with water and plates and that,
and a couple of toilets.”

“Okay, so far so good.
But why there in particular?”

“Well, a couple of
years ago there were kids throwing stones and breaking windows and that, when
it was empty. So they bricked up most of the windows, covered the rest with
thick wire, and put some really thick doors on it. It’s a mini-fortress.”

Alan
nodded,
he could see the thinking behind it now. “Okay,
let’s go.”

“Erm…” said Bert from
the back of the cart. “We might have a problem.”

James looked back over
his shoulder to where Bert was pointing. It was hard to see through the gloom,
but he didn’t really need to see to guess what it was.

The noise of Buster’s
hooves had done a good job of broadcasting their presence as well as masking
the approach of unwelcome visitors. But now he could hear the inexorable stamp
of feet, and a low growling, snarling coming from behind them.

Buster heard it too,
and James felt the reins jerk in his hands as the horse tossed his head in
distress. The cart jerked as Buster found a turn of speed which James had never
seen from him before. They moved from a walking speed up to a slow trot. James
tugged to try and control the horse, but the beast was just too big, too heavy
and too disconcerted to pay attention.

Whatever speed the
horse had found, however, wasn’t going to be enough to outrun those creatures.
He heard a grunt and the sound of metal on flesh, and glanced back long enough
to see Andy standing at the rear of the cart, Bert hanging onto the back of his
jacket to keep him balanced. Andy’s feet were planted and he was just swinging
back his golf club into a ‘batting’ position over his shoulder. He had obviously
just repelled a boarder.

Alan turned in his
seat, placing his hand on James’s shoulder, making to head back and help with
the task. James thought it was probably a good idea. One man with a golf-club
was only going to be able to do so much.

But then James fixed
his eyes on the road ahead and raised his hand to grab Alan’s sleeve. “Erm…
Alan.”

Alan looked down at
him, one leg already hooked over the seat into the wagon. “What?”

James didn’t say
anything, just used his head to indicate ahead of them.

Alan turned and looked
and saw what had caused James’s mute state. The road ahead, where it widened
out to pass around the green, was filled from edge to edge with zombies. They
weren’t moving, just standing and waiting. They didn’t need to come to the wagon.
Buster was taking them towards the wall of undead flesh at a canter.

They didn’t pause.
No-one needed to discuss what the noise meant. As soon as they heard the howl
in the darkness, they knew they had to run. Nicola picked up the threshing
blade which she had rescued from the pool of red goo which had once been Stan,
and which she had dropped when she saw the splintered door of the shed. She
still had the pack on her back.

She set off at a run
and the others followed.

At first she didn’t
think about where she was running to. The important word was ‘away’: away from
the noise approaching from the valley. Very soon, however, Dave was at her
side. “Where are we going to go?” he asked her.