Hellspawn (Book 1) (12 page)

“Smashing cuppa Sam,” he said, winking.

“Did you want some spaghetti? We have a bit left,” Sam inquired, eager to help.

“Not right now mate, maybe later. Tell you what, can you do me a favour and do a check of all the doors and windows?” John directed. Sam moved off to do as asked.

“They are all secure. I have taken care of it,” Kurt retorted with annoyance, turning from his task to look at John.

“I have seen your good work Son, but I think we still need to keep a constant eye out in case that changes. Also Sam, look out at the surrounding houses, see if anyone else is home and safe.”

Sam moved off quickly, carrying out the checks. Kurt had given up trying to get the woman to drink. Her top was wet from the spillage, though she had at least taken some in, which was a good sign. He felt exasperated, John was already questioning him and how he was handling this. It was always the same; Kurt never felt like he pleased his father or came up to scratch. The feeling was short lived and he was just happy to have his family together, for however long it may last. The hammering on the door was a constant reminder of the threat they faced.

Braiden had taken a chair out and offered it to Gloria who sat down, thanking him. He sat in another chair and copied her as she tried to soothe the woman, rubbing her back and reassuring her.

“What happened out there?” Kurt asked John.

John looked haunted for a moment. “I can’t tell you Kurt, not right now. Leave it be.”

“Ok.” He put his arm round his dad again, “I’m so glad you made it.”

“Me too, it was a close call at times.”

Kurt wanted to press him, on the other hand, he knew that John was stubborn and would tell him when he was ready.

“Dad and Grandad come and look. Quick,” Sam called from upstairs.

They rushed up and saw Sam was at a back room window, looking out and down the alleyway. He was pointing at a house that stood further down the estate, lights shone from every window. They could see someone leaning out of a window upstairs. At this distance, the figure was impossible to make out as the light turned them into a silhouette. The front door was open or more likely broken inwards. A steady line of the dead were entering the house. The blazing maw seemed to be swallowing them one by one.

“Jesus, what can we do?” Kurt exclaimed.

“Nothing, look at how many of them there are,” John answered solemnly, the voice of reason.

There were at least fifty between the two properties, with more likely to be out of sight. Kurt knew he was right in his analysis, but it didn’t help. They opened the window, the voice reaching them now, desperate and terrified. It was a man, screaming for help, yet knowing none was coming as the dead ones came for him.

“Get up into your attic, now!” Kurt shouted. The shadow turned in their direction, but he seemed to have missed Kurt’s advice.  So he shouted it again, as loud as he could.

“They are outside the door!” The man screamed back to them on the wind.

“Oh God,” whispered Sam as John took him and led him away from the window. He had witnessed enough already today and Kurt was thankful.

The man had climbed out onto a small ledge that each house was fitted with, a balcony that had never been finished when money had run out on the building project. There were no protective rails on them, just a drop onto the ground below. Now the balcony overhangs simply served as a place to wait out of the rain while someone answered the door. The first of the zombies had broken through into the upstairs room and were now toppling from the window and onto the balcony in an ungainly heap. The man would duly push them off before they could regain their footing. It was almost comical to watch, like an old clock, whose wooden figures would emerge at the turn of the hour and carry out an action over and over before retreating back into the clock body. The bumbling corpses would fall out of the window and he would kick them. They would topple over the edge to the ground, where they would struggle to rise and then head back in to the house. It was akin to the Greek myth of King Sisyphus, who was made to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity, only to have it fall to the bottom when he reached the peak. The task was useless but unceasing. Kurt felt wretchedness in his soul, forced to honour the man’s final moments as he weakened. He would not look away, he could not. Kurt couldn’t explain, in his mind, he felt if he didn’t witness the event, it would be a horrible betrayal of the stranger’s life. No one should be left to die alone.

It was happening. The man tried unsuccessfully to heft a zombie over the balcony’s edge. A second zombie fell out and then a third. They rose as one, the man was so weak from the exertions, they all just fell in a tangle of bodies from the balcony. He didn’t scream or shout. Silence marked his end at the hands of the crowd in his front garden. Kurt said a silent prayer and closed the window, the sounds of tearing and snapping bones carrying on the air.

“He’s gone,” Kurt informed John as they headed downstairs. They said no more about it, the losses were mounting and each death created a new enemy for the survivors.

“How many do you think there are out there?” John asked.

“I’m not sure, there were over fifty around, plus the ones that were… in the house.” Bad memories flashed through Kurt’s mind. “If it is the same all over the whole estate, we could be looking at several hundred in this area alone.”

John pondered for a moment, waiting at the kitchen door, “How many residents in Emsworth?”

Kurt didn’t like the way this conversation was going. “About ten thousand,” he answered.

“And in the surrounding villages?” John continued.

This was spiralling into new levels of nightmare. “About fifty thousand, and maybe half a million in Havant and Chichester…” Kurt answered.

“And we are slap bang in the middle of them all.” John’s logic was sound.

The mere thought of hundreds of thousands of those things was enough to cause Kurt to shiver and think how the hell could they possibly hold out against such numbers
?

“But someone will come, they have to come. The armed forces are going to sort this out. Christ, we have an Army barracks a few miles away on Thorney Island.” Kurt had to admit to himself that deep down, he had not given much credence to this being ‘The End’.

Even as they prepared and started their plans, he had assumed that the people in power would solve the crisis and things could return to some sort of normality in the next few weeks. His dad was making him think of a future that would be no better than Hell on earth.

“I sure hope so Son, but ask yourself this, how much help have we received from the emergency services so far? I haven’t even seen any sign of them since this started.”

Kurt remembered the speeding car that had passed them. There had been nothing else.

“None.” His head dropped, “Do you really think this is it?”

John knew what he meant. “I don’t know, still we have to be prepared for the possibility that the world is on the brink. We rely on ourselves but pray that this mess sorts itself out.”

Kurt nodded. Their whole mind-set was going to need to change. Things that had been taken for granted their whole life such as food, water and first aid were at an end. Could they adapt to this new existence? Would they want to? Kurt’s mind reeled with new understanding. Looking in the kitchen door at the rest of the group, he was scared for what was to come. Whatever it was, he could be sure it would not be anything good.

John saw the despondency in Kurt’s face, which hadn’t been his intention. He wanted his son to strengthen his resolve for the trials ahead.

“What did we learn a moment ago with what happened down the road?” John was trying to draw Kurt back and get him thinking like a survivor. Kurt thought for a moment, and then it dawned on him.

“The light!” Kurt looked around and the realisation of how much they were illuminated sunk in. “Bloody Hell! Sam, go and turn all the lights off upstairs, now!” Kurt made to run from room to room as well, but John stopped him. He had gone from one extreme to the other and the rush to action would be far too dangerous in this brave new world.

“Take a minute and think. The ones outside are already there, so there’s no point in worrying about them. We need to stop ourselves from being too much of a magnet to the others, yet we also need light to see what we are doing don’t we?” John let this sink in. He had an idea of what they could do as a temporary measure, but wanted Kurt to come to his own conclusion.

Kurt looked around thinking, finally he admitted defeat, the despondency back once again, “I just don’t know. I’m not cut out for this.”

“Why don’t we just put a couple of coats of paint on the windows down here? It will allow us to keep the lights on for now, at least until the electricity supply dies,” suggested John.

Kurt grudgingly accepted the idea. He was fed up of the condescending tone that his father used when talking to him, it made him feel infantile and weak. John sensed the change in his attitude and changed tact.

“Son, please don’t take it the wrong way. You are a superstar in how you saved so many people. Now is the time to be cool and calm. Think things through from every angle and do it quickly, those things won’t give you a second chance.”

Kurt knew Dad was right and only trying to protect them. His pride would have to take a backseat for now.

They collected a pot of paint and quickly coated the glass of each pane downstairs. Sam had finished the task on the upstairs windows and now they were slightly less obvious. The glass was difficult to cover in one coat, so they decided to wait and then give it another, sealing in the light further. The glass sat above chest height, so the zombies wouldn’t be able to get through the windows to them. Kurt didn’t like to be completely blind to the activity outside, they could observe in darkness from the upper floor unseen.

“Shall we have someone keep watch?” Kurt asked.

“Good idea, we need to know if anything is going on ahead of time. Sam, would you mind taking the first slot? Just check from window to window and if you see anything out of the ordinary, call immediately.” John smiled and shook his head when he realised what he had just said. Since when is zombie watching considered ordinary?

Kurt and John returned to the kitchen to find the woman was still unresponsive. The others were trying to make her comfortable. She was clean now. Sarah had taken one of her tops and changed the filthy vest she had been wearing before throwing it into the bin. It was too damaged and stained to be rescued.

“What is the news saying?” John inquired.

“Nothing good, I’m afraid,” answered Gloria, recounting the snippets of information that they had learned from the TV.

They had tried to feed the survivor some spaghetti sauce to keep her strength up. It had proven similar to feeding a baby, with much chin wiping and little making it into her stomach. It was obvious that there was nothing they could do at the present time, except wait and see what would happen over the coming days.

“I will take her up to the bedroom and see if she will sleep. It’s the body’s best way of healing.” Gloria stood and helped the girl up, Braiden followed and assisted where he could.

John had finally started to eat something as well. He, Kurt and Sarah returned to the lounge, the TV was still broadcasting. There were no new developments in the crisis.

“I noticed you have water upstairs, enough for several weeks as long as we cover it to prevent evaporation. What about food?” John wondered.

“We have plenty as long as we are careful. I took a few minutes and stocked up on dried and canned stuff, things that will last,” Kurt answered.

“The other issue is what do we do when the electricity stops? It could shut down at any minute, it all depends how long the power plants remain operational.”

Kurt had given this a lot of thought. “Chris had solar panels fitted six months ago, he was telling me that on a good day they get three kilowatts of power and one kilowatt on a cloudy one. If we can rig a wire from there to here, we will have a small amount of electric during the day. At night it will be candles and, fortunately, we have hundreds of them.” Kurt waved with his arm, showing the plethora of scented candles that adorned the shelves and fireplace mantels. “At least the place will smell good.”

John smiled, “Good. That will really help us. Have you given any thought to what we will do when the food runs out though, if things haven’t improved by then?” It was a difficult, but legitimate question to ask.

“The first thing I intend to do is break through, from the attic, into the other five houses on our row. None of them came home before this got bad.” Kurt thought about his neighbours, how they may be faring. “We can raid them for supplies. After that Dad, I just don’t know.”

“That sounds like a plan, but we need to really start to consider the possibility that this will not get better, and we will need to relocate at some point.” John was playing Devil’s advocate, broaching the tough issues and giving them time to really get their heads around the problems while they were relatively secure.

“I don’t have an answer,” Kurt conceded. “Can we sleep on it? My brain is close to shut down.” They were all yawning by this point, and the energy expended that day was incredible, coupled with the psychological trauma they had all endured. It was a surprise they were still standing.