Autumn exodus, p.15
Autumn - Exodus, page 15
‘Did you bring a net?’ Yas asked.
‘Thought you did.’
‘You said you were getting the net.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Go back and get one.’
‘Can’t be bothered.’
‘We’ll have to manage without.’
‘Got to catch some fish first...’
Damien had stopped listening to their inane back-and-forth. He was unsettled by the amount of movement he could see on the other side of the water. He hoped it was animals, or other people from the group, but he knew it wasn’t either. The clumsy rustling of the undergrowth indicated the presence of the dead.
‘Are you sure we’re alright out here?’
Paul looked up and squinted into the distance. He shook his head, not about to let his fishing trip be interrupted. ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s just a few creepers.’
‘You sure?’
Maybe it was the trees making it look like more of a crowd, the dead disappearing then reappearing in the gaps between trunks.
Paul looked again. He was getting annoyed now. ‘It’s nothing. Looks like a group of them that’s managed to get through a fence or something. It happens from time to time. Ed’s pretty good at keeping them under control, but even he can’t keep track of all of them. He says it’s like herding cats. Really fucking horrible cats as well.’
‘There’s quite a lot of them, Paul,’ Yas said.
‘What’s the matter with you two? We’ve just got to get used to this,’ he said as he continued setting up. ‘The population of the UK was about seventy million, last I heard. That means there’s gonna be bodies wherever we go for a while longer yet. You’ve just gotta learn how to deal with them.’
‘Yeah, I know that, but there’s a lot of them round here,’ Damien said, sounding nervous.
‘Frigging hell, mate, you’re not losing your bottle, are you? You played in attack in the Premier League, for fuck’s sake. You should be used to a bit of pressure.’
‘I am, but this is different, isn’t it? I’d fancy my chances against a massive away crowd more than I would a handful of those rotting fuckers.’
Paul sighed with disappointment. It was true what they used to say about never meeting your heroes. Damien was proving to be a real disappointment, gibbering nervously. ‘Look, mate, we’ve come down here to relax and catch some fish. When it comes down to it, staying safe from the dead and catching fish are similar hobbies.’
‘Bullshit. How d’you work that out?’
‘They’re both a lot easier if you keep your bloody mouth shut.’
‘Yeah, but look at them. They’re coming this way, Paul. Can they hear us?’
Paul was getting annoyed now. ‘They can hear you, that’s for sure. Now shut up and fish. If you don’t like it out here, go back.’
He didn’t want to admit it, because to do that might give Damien and Yas the impression that he was concerned, but there did seem to be a lot of dead bodies around here, far more than he’d expected to see. There was a sizeable crowd gathered on the other side of the water now. Worryingly, some of them seemed to be edging along one side of the fishing pool now too.
Yasir had also seen them. ‘Look, Paul,’ he whispered, ‘I don’t want you thinking I’m bottling it or anything, but there’s a heck of a lot of them down there. I don’t like it. I’ve only ever seen them in numbers like that when Ed’s been...’
He stopped speaking suddenly.
‘What is it?’ Damien asked, heart thumping.
‘Listen.’
Someone was singing. It was such a surreal thing to hear that, for a moment, neither Paul nor Damien knew how to react. The words were inaudible, but they could just about make out the tune. The Final Countdown... a slice of cheesy eighties pop-rock that Paul remembered his dad playing on the car stereo on repeat. Yas recognised it for a very different reason. ‘It’s bloody Ed, that is,’ he said. ‘He’s always singing that frigging song when he’s moving the dead. He sings to make them follow him.’
‘So, why’s he bringing them this way?’
It took an idiot or a genius to risk making a noise like this out in the open. From what he’d so far seen, Paul wasn’t yet sure which of those camps Ed fell into.
‘Reckon Piotr’s told him to move a load of bodies?’ Damien asked.
‘Away from the warehouses, maybe, but he’s bringing them closer.’
Realisation dawned.
Paul threw his fishing tackle down then sprinted along the edge of the pool to shut Ed up. When he spotted him at the front of the herd, he screamed at him without thinking. ‘You fucking maniac. What the hell are you doing?’
Ed stopped singing and stepped off the path. The snaking column of listless figures that had been following him continued to move forward and Paul realised he’d been played. By default, Ed’s calculated silence had left him as the sole focus of undead attention. Paul panicked, not knowing what to do or where to go. He thought he should try and lead the corpses away and back out into the wilderness, but the idea of being followed by them was too terrifying to even consider. Instead he ran for cover, racing back to the warehouse.
He tripped over a pile of fishing tackle abandoned in the middle of the path. Damien and Yasir were already long gone.
25
The alarm had already been sounded at the warehouses. Piotr had been ready for this. He’d expected it. He watched from outside his building as Paul raced across the scrubland like a frightened little kid.
Inside, Harjinder was rallying the troops as boss man had ordered. Though they’d spent much of their time here enjoying the fruits of their labour, Piotr had insisted on some level of preparedness, should the dead attack. Retribution from the disgruntled former occupants of the warehouses had been expected, as had the possibility of other survivors stumbling on their treasure trove by chance. And there had always been the very real possibility that the dead themselves would return in huge numbers, of their own volition.
It didn’t matter. Every one of those threats would be dealt with in the exact same way. His lot would wipe the fuckers out.
They’d found an almost endless supply of items on the shelves of the warehouses that could be used to fight. It wasn’t like in other countries, where guns and ammo could be bought off the shelf, but that didn’t matter. Here, chainsaws, garden tools, power tools, even sporting equipment had been repurposed as weapons with devastating destructive power.
Piotr gave the order to the thirty-odd fighters he had left at his disposal. ‘Destroy every single one of them. Living or dead, I don’t want anything left standing at the end of this but us.’
And he waited for his people to pull the rip cords and triggers and start their chainsaws and other tools, then followed them down into battle.
#
Vast columns of the dead emerged from the country park. The confines of the established paths they’d followed through the greenery had given the illusion of them having formation and intent, but as soon as they were out into the open, they spread out and became more diffuse and erratic. The weapons Piotr’s soldiers used today would have been out of the question on all other occasions, but the ugly machine noise proved unexpectedly useful. Just when it looked like the army of the dead was going to fragment and become harder to contain, the abrasive noise of the buzzsaws and nail guns and circular saws gave them a whole new focus, calling them to the slaughter. Piotr wished he’d thought of this earlier. He followed a woman who swept the whirring blade of her chainsaw from side-to-side, slicing up corpse after corpse. It was as if they couldn’t wait to be killed. There was an undeniable beauty in the over-powered re-kill. When she cut through them at an angle, the two uneven halves of their blood-slick, dismembered bodies slid apart.
A few metres behind, someone let out a horrific yell of pain. Piotr didn’t look around to see who it was – no point, it didn’t matter – but he shouted an order they all needed to hear. ‘Careful. Watch the people around you.’ The adrenalin was flowing. If they weren’t careful, the one-sided battle would degenerate into total mayhem. His people needed not to lose control.
A surge from the dead caused him to take a few steps back. Bones crunched under his boots, and he looked down and saw it was one of his men. A recent recruit from Yaxley... he couldn’t remember the lad’s name. Didn’t matter now. He picked up the nail gun he’d had been using and began moving from corpse to corpse, firing nails into what was left of their brains with a pneumatic thump and hiss and a satisfying, rifle-like recoil.
What the fuck?
Now that Piotr had turned around and was facing the opposite direction, he saw that even more of the dead were flooding onto the battlefield, this time from the general vicinity of the fields to the east of Yaxley. A two-pronged attack. No, wait, three-pronged – there was yet another wave of them approaching the warehouses from the west.
‘It’s a fucking set-up,’ Piotr said, furious. He backed into Harjinder, and they almost went for each other before both realising just in time.
‘It’s the locals isn’t it, boss?’
‘Of course it’s them.’ He paused to put a nail through the skull of another cadaver. ‘We talked about this, Harj. We knew they’d try something eventually.’
The situation had deteriorated with a speed that was completely at odds with the slothful advances of the dead. Paul Duggan felt responsible, like he had something to prove. He wrestled a hedge trimmer from Darren Adams who’d gone down under the weight of a bunch of corpses that had rushed him at once. ‘Help me, Paul!’ Darren yelled, but Paul wasn’t listening. He could see Piotr up ahead now, talking to Harjinder, and he knew he needed to make his presence known.
‘Wipe ‘em out,’ Paul screamed as he ran, and he lowered the whirring blade and hacked through the legs of another four cadavers. Though nowhere near as powerful as the chainsaws others were wielding, the trimmer ripped through the parchment-thin flesh of the undead, felling them like sapling trees.
Harjinder had disappeared. Paul pushed forward again to take his place. Yas blocked his way through.
‘You’ve got to help me, Paul. I’m no fighter.’
‘We’re all fighters now,’ Paul said, plunging the grinding teeth of the trimmer into a dead woman’s belly.
‘But I can’t do this—’
Paul shoved Yas out of the way. The terrified man collided with Piotr, who spun around and fired a nail through his cranium, only realising what he’d done once he looked down at the body by his feet.
‘Focus, you fucking morons,’ he yelled, and he kicked Yasir’s lifeless body in frustration.
Paul edged closer. ‘I know what’s happening, Piotr,’ he shouted, breathless, yelling to make himself heard over the battle noise. ‘It’s Ed. I saw him. He’s led them all here. It’s a set-up.’
‘Worked that out on your own, did you?’
And then they both froze, because in the few random, vacuum-like seconds between the last attack and the next, they both heard the same thing.
Engines.
#
David gave the signal, and the convoy moved away at speed. True to their word, Ed and Marcus had left the road ahead completely clear. He remained tense, expecting dead bodies to swarm out across the tarmac at any moment, but none came.
Barbara Moore navigated for David. She was sharp as a pin, and she knew the streets here as well as anyone. After retiring fifteen years ago, she’d lived in Yaxley with her husband until the world’s end. Now she was Ed’s right hand, helping on the farm. She didn’t like physical work these days, but she was keen to get rid of the vile bastards who’d tainted the village with their unwanted presence. ‘Left then an immediate left again,’ she ordered, and David obliged without hesitation as she navigated them through the maze. ‘Next left, then two rights in quick succession.’
He did as she told him and swung the truck back around onto the road they’d originally followed into Yaxley. It too was now artificially clear. He checked the rear-view: Chapman and Sanjay were close behind.
Barbara tapped his arm. ‘Keep your eyes on the road, David, and put your bloody foot down.’
#
Whenever there was any sign of trouble, Kelly looked for Alfonso Morterero and stuck to him like glue. ‘What the hell’s going on, Alf?’ she asked.
He was a man of few words. ‘No fucking clue.’
‘But he told you to wait here?’
‘Yep.’
‘In the van?’
‘Yep.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m his driver.’
‘I know that much, dimwit. Did he say where he’s going?’
‘Nope.’
‘Are we in trouble here?’
This time Alfonso just shrugged, didn’t even bother answering. Kelly was about to speak again when three trucks came out of nowhere and screeched into the warehouse carparks. The first two continued as far as they could, the third stopped abruptly, blocking the exit. Alfonso grabbed Kelly’s arm and pulled her down. The two of them sank into their seats, out of sight.
‘Fuck,’ Alfonso said.
#
Piotr’s ragtag army were fighting for all they were worth. There was barely any fear in the ranks, little nervousness, because they’d been here before, would no doubt be here again, and each time they’d prevailed. The dead were a nuisance, no longer a threat. Their numbers were a challenge, but nothing they hadn’t overcome previously. Those dumb fucking yokels thought they’d been so fucking smart leading their undead sheep back to the warehouses, but the fighters had seen worse. Sure, a handful of them had gone down and would be missed, but most were still standing, still slaughtering. When they’d last fought like this in London, they’d been up against an enemy with apparently limitless numbers in its ranks, an endless supply of cannon fodder. Today, though, they were facing just a few hundred of the undead, a thousand, tops. And now they all had shiny new weapons. Easy money.
The fiercest fighting was concentrated around the centre of the scrubland battlefield. This was the point at which the snaking columns of corpses had converged on Piotr’s gang, and also the point from which they’d launched their fightback. The epicentre of it all had become a magnet for violence, a hot, swirling mess of blood, sweat, and broken bones. The dead continued to surge forward, and the remaining fighters attacked them with a nervous energy that bordered on glee. The massacre was therapeutic for the men and women who fought, though their strength flagged. The fact there was a clear end in sight now gave them a renewed energy, an incentive to keep attacking. They knew the dead had been brought here as a last-ditch attempt at rebellion. When it failed, as it inevitably would, they’d launch again, a proper planned attack, and get rid of those troublesome natives once and for all.
‘They’re slowing down,’ Paul shouted to Piotr and to anyone else who could hear him. ‘Keep going. One last push. We’ve got this!’
The reduction in the corpse ranks was becoming noticeable now. Though there were still hordes of the undead on the battlefield, the vast numbers that had come here had finally started drying up; now just a trickle of slow-moving stragglers wandered into the kill-space. Paul felt unstoppable. From zero to hero in the space of one quick battle. He’d worried that Piotr might have found out from Damien and Yasir that he’d seen them coming through the country park and had just run for cover instead of trying to stop them but, against the odds, he’d turned things around. Now he was the one coordinating the charge and inflicting maximum damage on the pathetic dead. He was exhausted, but he was going to stay at the centre of it all, cutting down corpse after corpse after corpse with his blood-soaked power tool, determined that the boss would take note.
He looked around for Piotr, because it was pointless trying so hard if he wasn’t watching, but Paul couldn’t see him anywhere. Christ, what if he’s gone down? Fuck! For a moment it was hard to contain his excitement. Staying on the right side of the chief was his best option for now, but if something had happened to Piotr out here, he’d be a natural fit to fill the power vacuum left behind.
Hold on.
Is that Steve Armitage up there?
I don’t remember him being here with us?
Paul was confused. He could definitely see Steve Armitage – he was a distinctive-looking guy – but what was he doing here? He was hanging back, well away from the centre of the fighting, and Paul could see other people he recognised now too. People he was certain they’d left behind in London: Lisa Kaur, Doctor Liz, Chapman... Fuck. Where the hell had this lot come from?
#
‘Now!’ Steve ordered. On his command, they each pulled their pins and hurled their grenades into the heart of the battle between Piotr’s army and the Yaxley undead. It was all but impossible to miss. They all hit their mark, and the resulting succession of explosions was devastating. Vast clouds of dirt and body parts were thrown up into the cold December morning air, and when the noise died down, there was absolute silence.
Nothing moved on the scrubland. No living, no undead. No survivors.
Liz Hunter vomited. David went to support her, but she pushed him away. She wiped bile from the corner of her mouth and slowly approached the devastation. ‘You okay?’ he asked.
‘Not exactly.’
‘We had to do it.’
‘If you say so. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to prolong life, and now I’m reduced to this. It’s fucking disgusting. Completely necessary, I suppose, but fucking disgusting. What have we become, Dave?’
David had no answer.
Behind them, there was a commotion outside the warehouse. Sanjay shoved a group of figures out into the carpark. Dr Ahmad, and several others that David didn’t immediately recognise. They were either people who’d taken the easy option and fled from the Tower with Piotr, or those who’d defected when he’d reached Yaxley. Fucking cowards, the lot of them. Total risk avoidance. He looked at them with disdain. ‘What shall I do with this lot?’ Sanjay shouted.
‘Lock them up somewhere. We’ll decide what to do with them later.’
