Hellspawn (Book 1) (17 page)

“So, we can agree that there is a good window for coming up with a safe plan. There is no need to go off half cocked.” Gloria was the voice of sense and reason.

“The biggest problem is going out in the street because of the zombies. Ok, we reduce the number.” Sam hit the nail on the head, how did the phrase go?
Out of the mouths of babes?
It was simple in theory, but how could they possibly do it?

“I have the slingshot,” Braiden offered. “There are hundreds of steel bearings.”

“That’s good, we can pick them off from a distance, but the accuracy may be an issue.” John was wondering what else could be used. “Maybe we could use the concrete blocks and throw them down?”

“It would be a waste Dad. We only have about fifty of them. How about we make more spears like that?” Kurt pointed into the corner where the washed, iron pipe spear stood.

“I don’t think so, they would be too awkward to use from a window,” John replied. An idea came to him. “Hang on. We don’t necessarily need to use a window. Why don’t we do it from the attic? I can take some roof tiles out and it will give us an excellent vantage point.”

“They will be too heavy for us. Each one would need to be at least fifteen feet long…” Kurt mulled on this.

“Maybe not, what else can you do with spears?” John asked.

Kurt was confused. “Well, throw them, but then they are wasted?” He couldn’t see the point.

“Why don’t we bolt chains through each one? That way we can pull them back up each time. We found some rope and chain in the end house.” It was starting to come together in Johns mind. Kurt had seen a dangerous flaw in the plan.

“That’s a good idea, but what is to stop them from pulling you down with the chain?”

“Easy, we bolt it to the roof trusses. There’s a fixed point at both ends that way. And I can fix some timbers in place to prevent us falling, yet still giving us full scope to attack them.” They gave this some more thought, only the crackle of the fire interrupting the quiet.

“I think it might work! It’s going to be a long, slow process. It will be exhausting, throwing and pulling the iron tubing over and over again.” Kurt still doubted.

John rolled his sleeve up and flexed his bicep, it was very impressive for his age and Kurt couldn’t help but notice the look that Gloria gave him. Sam followed suit, as did Braiden, all showing off their little muscles.

Kurt and Sarah laughed. “Well it’s not like we’ve got anything else to do, is it?” she said.

They had a plan, it may not work, but at least they would be occupied for the next few days. The feeling of striking a blow for humanity would be good for their souls.

“There’s one major problem,” Kurt told them and pointed at the window. They didn’t follow his reasoning. “Without sunshine we will have very little power to make them. We still need to bring the cable through from Chris’s house.”

“I think we would be better off making the stuff in the end attic, there are benches that we can use to bolt the vice and grinder down to. We will run a cable both ways, one for the tools and one for the appliances.” John moved off, ready to get started.

“One thing Dad, I think we need to pull the main company fuses, or it might bleed back into the power grid. If we break the connection, the power will stay within our circuits. There’s only one big problem with that,” Kurt looked at the floor. “Our fuse is down there.”

“Does it need to be pulled out or can it be broken? We could just cut a hole in the floor and poke it to death,” Gloria suggested.

Kurt and John looked at each other, “I think that would work, it wouldn’t matter as the circuit is still intact,” said Kurt. “Let’s get to it.” He swung his legs round and made to stand up, but Sarah was there again to stop him.

“You still need to rest that ankle. The shower was hard enough on you,” Sarah scolded him.

“I know exactly where it is honey, I can get it cut and broken a lot quicker. You can help me get to the spot on the landing that sits over the fuse cupboard. Dad, be careful in Chris’s, pull it and get out. We can run the cable from any of the sockets upstairs.”

Sarah helped him rise and John made his way to the attic, a job to be done fast and quietly. He took two extension leads with him to plug in and run to the house and attic workshop. They reached the right spot and Kurt carefully lowered himself, slipping the ankle out sideways to prevent a knock. Sarah brought him a box cutter knife and he cut a small section of carpet and pulled it back, revealing the boards below. Without power, he could either smash a hole with a hammer, or use a special floorboard saw to cut it out which would take a while. He opted to do it the right way, a hole in the floor was a needlessly dangerous thing to leave on the landing. He didn’t want his ankle injury to happen to the others.

By the time Kurt finished, John had returned from Chris’s house and had run the extension leads to their destinations. Kurt was sweating, the awkward angle and the depth of the wood made the job much harder than it could have been. He pulled the board out and looked down into the floor void, dust and cobwebs littered the upper side of the downstairs ceiling. He took his iron spear from his wife and carefully broke through into the cupboard. The door had been removed and he was greeted by the face of a young male zombie, it could have only been twelve years old when it died. Kurt was grateful that it was not damaged on the upper extremities, no gore was visible, just a chalk white face and look of intense hatred and yearning. It reached for him.

Kurt did his best to ignore the child corpse. He could see the fuse, but every time he got close to the target, the child’s flailing limbs caught the pipe and knocked it clear. After the sixth attempt, his patience was at an end. He lined up the tube and rammed it down. It pierced through the forehead in a splash of green, rotting blood and the child crumpled to the ground. Kurt wasted no time and jabbed at the fuse, breaking the case and knocking it clear where it fell onto the chest of the new corpse. It was good timing, another zombie had noticed the movement and came to investigate and tried to grasp the pole as it was being withdrawn. This one was not in such a good state. The flesh was nearly liquid where decomposition had set in, maggots and other crawling creatures moved within the orifices that were visible, the companions of the grave. The putrid, sweet smell was drawn up and into his nostrils and it was only their growing familiarity with this new fragrance that prevented him vomiting the eggs up all over it. He replaced the board and carpet, putting from view the rotting cadaver.

“What is it honey?” Sarah asked, seeing the paleness in his face.

“It’s nothing,” he lied. He didn’t want to dwell on it.

She helped him stand up and led him back to bed where he slumped. Looking up at the ceiling, he found it hard to not imagine the child zombie. It was someone’s son, were his parents dead too? In a way he wished they were, the grief and pain that they would feel would be devastating. He would die if anything ever happened to his family. He’d join the ranks of the zombie horde with no hesitation, wandering the world with his loved ones, hungering together. John entered the room and took his attention away from the introspection he was engaged in.

“The cables are in and turned on, I’ve tried the fridge but it sounds sluggish. I’m not sure if the changing voltage will damage it but we have to wait and see. I’ll plug it back in mid-morning and let it run until the afternoon.”

With the fading light, nothing remained to be done. Dinner was prepared and eaten and plans were made for the coming day. They cut the sections of tube to length, ensuring they were light enough to throw, but heavy enough to cause deadly damage to the waiting skulls below. They chose not to hammer it flat at night, instead they would do all the noisy work at one time and try to minimise the attraction for more walking dead. Goodnights were said, the fire was built to provide heat through the night and more hugs than normal were given. They were much more touchy-feely now Kurt had noticed, seeming to draw strength from the contact. He knew he did as well. They slept.

The sense of despair and helplessness was slowly being replaced with a sense of purpose, a need for action. They had seen the worst atrocities committed by beings that had no conscience or remorse, just an insatiable hunger for flesh. Their faith in the authorities to protect them had been misplaced. In a way this was unfair because the events were so surreal, so out of this world crazy, that no one would have ever countenanced it happening. Denial of the facts would be suicide, however, it was happening and they could sit and wait, or try and help the occupants of the mystery house.

It seemed fate was on their side, the dismal grey of autumn had broken, albeit probably not for long. The sun was a dazzling ball of incandescence, the moist ground bled mist in undulating swirls. The scene was eerie, the mist lending an almost Hammer Horror appearance to the shuffling masses of rotting dead. The fields and forests were blanketed with it, the zombies walking to and fro, there one minute, gone the next. John knew that in time it would clear and their task would be made easier, the lack of vision no longer an obstacle. He had set the vice and grinding wheel up in the attic workshop. The sun was providing a steady current which ensured the fridge was running properly, the potential damage to the motor not being an issue today. The surplus energy was sufficient to spin the wheel fast enough to file the steel. Taking the tube, he placed a folded towel on the anvil plate of the vice, as well as over the pipe itself. He wanted to deaden as much of the noise as possible, but with each blow the vibrations travelled through the fabric of the house like a tuning fork. It was pointless to worry, and through the hammering, he heard the sound of the zombies as they investigated this new disturbance, their own blows mimicking his.

“Sam, Braiden, carry on what I have shown you. Flatten the pipes and then carefully file them to a point. Use the safety glasses for the sparks and flecks of steel,” John instructed them after showing exactly how to carry out the tasks. “I’m going down the other end of the attic. If we can draw them away from the house across the road, we will be much safer if we decide to break cover and investigate.”

It made sense to the boys and they set to work carefully, the lesson in the dangers of the tools not wasted on them. John was so proud. They had really stepped up to the plate where many would have crumbled.

John crouched and ducked through each of the holes they had made before reaching the final house. Using a claw hammer, he broke through the roof tiles, creating a section ten feet wide by six feet high. Any rain would now enter the property, but it couldn’t be helped, the pressing need to thin the horde was paramount. He clutched the roof beams and leaned forward to get a better view, which caused excitement among the zombies close enough to see. The openness of the roof worried him. He could see that it would be very easy to be toppled over the edge by an errant throw or the mistimed pull of a zombie on the chain. He decided on a framework that he would fit at waist height to the rafters, giving a solid barrier to the task at hand. He made his way back to collect the timber, saw and nails and was happy to see that the tubes were near completion, the points sharp and deadly.

“Come here Sam. While I fix the railing for us, I need you to drill holes in the other end. This is where we will attach the chain.” John proceeded to demonstrate how to drill through the metal, taking it slow until the bit had dug in and then increasing speed to penetrate. Sam then carried on where John had left off, putting his goggles on and drilling with care and attention.

The preparations were soon complete, the timber roof frame was in place to prevent them falling. The steel tubes had been sharpened and chained to the rafters to allow them to be drawn back up after throwing. Braiden had also brought the slingshot and was itching to try the ammunition on the walking corpses below. 

“Any room for us?” asked Sarah, who was stood there with Gloria just inside the attic partition wall. She had been so quiet, and their attention had been so fixated on the panorama below, that they nearly jumped clean out of the roof in surprise.

“Sorry, we didn’t mean to startle you,” Gloria apologised.

“Blimey!” John held his chest in mock pain. “My old heart can’t take many more shocks like that!”

“I’m sure it will take a lot more than a few scares to finish you off,” said Gloria as she winked at him.

Braiden was tugging at the leather pouch, getting used to the new weapon.

“Have you ever fired one before?” asked Gloria.

“No Miss, I mean Gloria,” Braiden spluttered, it was still strange to be calling a teacher by their first name.

“Here, let me show you.” She reached out and took it from him, pulling the pouch and inspecting the rubber banding. “That’s good; the rubber is soft and supple. The last thing you want is for it to snap and take your eye out.”

Braiden looked at the slingshot with mistrust, he had assumed he just pulled and let go of it, he didn’t want to lose an eye. Gloria took a bearing and held the slingshot at arm’s length, placed the ball in the leather cup, and pulled it back to her face.

“Now look, you use the stretched band to aim by. Hold your arm steady and when you have your target, release it gently.” She had chosen a figure in the crowd, roughly twenty five feet away. They all held their breath and watched in amazement. She took a breath, and released the cup with an almighty twang. The bearing hit the zombie in the head, grazed the skull, and took a large section of scalp with it into the distance.

“Hmm, I think the bearing was too light or it would have broken through the skull. Do you have any heavier than that?” Gloria asked.

“Yeah, we have these ones.” He produced a ball twice the diameter and more than double the weight.

“Excellent, you should practice with the light ones and when comfortable, use the heavier ones to inflict the killing blows. I should think the, how shall we say it, older specimens may be vulnerable to the smaller balls as their bones would be more brittle,” Gloria informed them. It seemed a reasonable assumption that they would put to the test.

“Ok, so how do we get their attention?” Sarah asked. Gloria stepped forward, inserted two fingers into her mouth, and let rip with an ear piercing wolf whistle that most construction workers would have been proud to claim as their own. They stood there, mouths gaping for a few seconds, amazed at this lady and her many surprises.

“I think that may have got their attention, look.” John pointed, and it was plain to see that the zombies from as much as several hundred feet were making their way over. He looked over the barrier and, to their relief; the dead were also making their way around the row of houses towards the waiting trap. The way would be much safer for the potential attempt to reach the other survivors.

They stood in silence, lined up close to the timber barricade and looking down on the approaching horde. The numbers were close to two hundred, with stragglers arriving here and there. The survivors could have been stage performers, or pop stars, their adoring audience whipped into a frenzy of waving arms. The dead weren’t reaching in adulation, desperate for the faintest touch of their idol; they wanted to rend them shrieking and bloody. A chorus of pandemonium rose and hit them like a physical blow, the guttural inhuman moans shaking them to their core.

John lifted the iron spear like a javelin and launched it downwards towards the crush of bodies. It missed completely and went down between several of the dead, the chain pulling taut as it struck the lawn and embedded itself into the ground. They watched to see if the zombies would be interested in the weapon and chain, but their attention was riveted on the live meat standing in the roof. Braiden was getting closer to the head with each shot, he picked out a wet, festering zombie and took aim. Releasing the leather pouch, the ball sunk into the jellied flesh with a small plop, much like the sound of a drop of water falling from a tap into a sink. Each subsequent shot brought him nearer to the skull, until one lucky strike went through the white eye and into the brain. With another green splash of viscous liquid, the body fell. A cheer went up from the survivors at the victory, and they commenced with the bombardment. The steel spears were raised and released, dropping with sufficient force to tear arms free at the shoulder and rip whole chunks of face clean from the heads.

John pulled the tube back up, the chain proving invaluable in saving their scarce resources. It was clogged with flesh and viscera between the links and the pipe itself was drenched with green tinged blood. They had hurriedly put rubber gloves on to protect themselves from any possible infection that the blood and guts may contain. Aiming once more, he threw the spear. It sailed downwards and took the entire left side of the head off from the zombie. Sarah had recovered hers and launched it again, the weapon took the glaring zombie in the chest and pinned it to the ground. At times it looked like an entomologist’s nightmare, the writhing, pinned zombies resembling insects on a board. Sam was not having much luck, the weight of the steel tiring him quickly and causing him to miss often. Braiden could see the frustration in his face and, with the help of Gloria, instructed him in the use of the slingshot. Sam was a natural. The first attempt went awry while he got the basics of aiming, but his second shot was devastating. The three quarter inch bearing ruptured straight through the forehead and shattered through the back of the skull in a welter of blood and rotting brain matter. The body dropped like a stone, leaking fluid still escaping both holes.

“Way to go Sam!” cried Braiden, acknowledging the skill of the shot. “Here, take the rest of the ball bearings. I will have a go with the spear.”

Braiden and Sam swapped positions, and the attack continued. Sarah took careful aim and let hers drop instead of throwing it, the accuracy was much improved and the zombie was pierced through the top of its skull and down through the body cavity. Sarah and John tried to pull it free, but the spear was embedded so deep within the corpse it bounced and danced like a marionette. Slowly it came out; inch by inch, withdrawn like a huge, bloodied, splinter of metal.

Pipes lanced down in a flash, again and again, the chains glistening in the reflected sun. Bearings ripped skull and flesh before making craters in the grass underneath. The lawn was a mess of rotting meat, putrid blood and hole filled zombies. Any that had been slain were trampled by the ones that took their place. Bones crunched audibly underfoot and their innards were squeezed out of orifices by the compressive weight of those that stood on them.

After three hours had passed, the sun had been covered by the onset of new rain clouds. They had killed about a hundred of the crowded undead, many fewer than they had wanted to. It was clear the idea of the spears had been sound, but the movement of the dead and limited target of the brains was against them from the start. If it had been normal human beings they would have killed every single one. The ability of their enemy to be ripped, stabbed and crushed and still fight on was another huge obstacle which they would need to take into account in the future. Exhausted and frustrated, they gathered up the weapons and wiped them as clean as possible of gore and blood. The disappointment was evident in their demeanour. They had been hopeful of thinning the numbers to allow a rescue attempt. Staring down at the gathered crowd who were still wailing their hunger, they knew that it would still be too dangerous to attempt the investigation of the dark house that day. They laid down the equipment and began to make their way back into the attic space, until a fresh sound caught their attention. It was quiet at first and they couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just wishful thinking. The intensity grew over the moans of the dead, it was the unmistakeable whup whup whup of a helicopter’s rotor. The blades were causing air pressure fluctuations they could actually feel as it approached, which meant it had to be large. Craning their necks, they caught sight of the Chinook as it broke through a cloud to the south of the estate, and headed directly over the roof they were standing in at a height of one thousand feet. It was a dual rotor army helicopter that was used for troop movement or heavy equipment transport, roughly twenty tonnes in weight, which necessitated the extra lift and power.

“DOWN HERE!” Sam screamed, leaping and waving.

“HEY! HEY!” Braiden added.

“It’s no use boys. They are far too high to see us,” John explained.

“But it means the army is still active, they will be fighting back,” Sarah said offering some encouragement.

“Exactly, we just have to sit tight and wait. We can still attempt to consolidate our position and help any other survivors that we can,” Gloria finished.

They retreated down into their home, excited by the appearance of the armed forces, even from a distance. Kurt had taken a chair and was talking to the silent lady. He wasn’t asking her questions or trying to solicit a response, instead he just talked about his job, his family, the restaurants he liked to eat in, days out they had been on. He was mid-way through explaining the Durdle Door in Dorset, a stunning eroded archway set into cliffs which he had swam through on several occasions. He described the crystal clear water, the way you could see the bottom and any life that moved below as you glided through the ocean.

“How did it go? Was that a helicopter I heard?” Kurt asked expectantly.

“We killed loads Dad, but there are too many, we can’t get to that house yet. And yeah! It was a Chinook from Thorney Barracks,” Sam explained, grinning.

“It means there is still an army,” Sarah beamed. “We will be rescued soon.”