The Undead. The First Seven Days (76 page)

Howie looks back at the Saxon, then to the horde waiting for them.
  ‘We’ll charge them,’ Howie says.
  ‘The other vehicles won’t get more than a few metres into that lot,’ Chris says.
  ‘Then we all go in the Saxon,’ the big man with the bald head says.
  ‘Good plan, I’m in,’ Chris adds.
  ‘Me too,’ Malcolm says.
  ‘Fuck it, let’s load up then,’ Chris says, as they all turn and walk back to the Saxon in silence.
  Howie sits in the driver’s seat, slowly increasing the pressure on his right foot and making the engine roar loudly.

Big Chris clambers through and gets up on the GPMG, his large frame barely fitting into the hole.
  The Saxon surges forward, Howie working through the gears, as the engine increases in pitch,  racing towards the waiting hordes.
  Big Chris opens up on the GPMG, sweeping across the front ranks and cutting them down with a deadly hail of lead. The ranks get cut down from the ferocious firing, but they hold position as the bullets rip through them.
  At the last few hundred meters, Chris aims directly in front of them, making small movements left and right; chopping them down and creating a hole for the Saxon.
  The Saxon slams into them with enormous power and speed. The impact jolts each man inside, but Chris braces his powerful legs and absorbs the blow into his large frame; his hands never leaving the machine gun and he spins round, cutting them down, then sweeps back to the front and works to carve a hole for the Saxon.
  The vehicle ploughs into the bodies and Howie selects the four-wheel drive to keep the vehicle surging forward.

The huge tyres keep the grip and bounce over bodies; crushing them into a pulp. The vehicle keeps going further and further into the bodies and the engine screams, as Howie applies more power to his foot, forcing the heavy vehicle to slam them down or send them spinning off to the sides.
  Within seconds, they are deep into the horde and ramming the zombies away, as they keep pushing towards the third junction on the left. The first one passes and the Saxon powers on, taking each body down with ease. The GPMG spews a hail of rounds into the bodies in front of the vehicle, as they gradually work closer and closer.
  They pass the second junction and suddenly the massed horde surge forward into the path of the Saxon. The bodies push and press and the gaps between them close up, as they become a solid object.
  The third junction gets closer and closer as the vehicle keeps going, punishing the zombies for daring to be in the way.

The undead keep pushing forward, forcing more and more bodies into the path of the vehicle. More bodies push them from behind too and the zombies stretch away for miles in every direction.
  The Saxon reaches the junction and starts to slow, as the sheer weight of bodies prevents it from advancing. Howie pushes his foot flat to the floor and the Saxon’s engines scream out and they gain ground, inch by inch, slowly crushing the bodies in front of them. The GPMG sends a withering hail into the zombies and they drop down, allowing the Saxon to keep pushing forward, but the horde is relentless and keeps pushing back.

A solid object against an immovable force.

The competition goes on, as the machine gun rips them apart and creates small gaps for the Saxon to push into.
  ‘You’ll blow the engine,’ a voice shouts from the back and Howie is forced to ease off.

The sudden reduction in power brings the Saxon to a halt; jammed in a sea of zombies pushing closer and closer into them.
  ‘I’ll cut down a gap then we’re out and fighting for it, make ready,’ Chris yells down and commences firing again; moving slowly round in circles to create an ever-increasing gap round the Saxon.

He spins and the constant rain of bullets shreds the zombies to pieces. The bodies rack up and form a barrier to those behind and he keeps spinning round, as the circle surrounding the Saxon gradually grows more and more.
  ‘Make ready,’ Chris bellows, as the men inside the vehicle prepare for their big moment.
 

_________________________________________

Sarah empties her gym rucksack on the bed, sending white socks, deodorant and a small make-up bag over the crumpled bed sheets.

She grabs two bottles of water - the only two actual water bottles she has in the apartment - and pushes them into the bag.

Next, she goes to the cupboard and looks at the tinned food. Tins are heavy and too many will slow her down, plus the bag isn’t that big, and also they will clunk together and make noise as she moves.

But she needs food and everything else has been eaten. After minutes spent deciding, she finally chooses three tins and takes them to the bag, then runs back to take the tin opener from the drawer.
  ‘What else will I need?’ She mutters quietly, having learnt years ago that talking to herself

calms her down and helps to rationalise her mind.
  ‘Water, food - got them… what about clothes?’ She puts in clean panties and a pair of socks, then quickly pulls them out, chastising herself. Within minutes, she puts them back in and stands back to stare at the bag, waiting for inspiration to strike her. ‘That’s it then… all I need, water, food and clean pants…’ She mutters again and closes the bag up, before shrugging it on her back; feeling uncool for using both straps, then laughing at herself for the ridiculous thought.
  She gathers up her homemade spear - the broomstick with the long knife attached to the end -and walks towards her apartment door; pausing to listen, before she opens it.
  A noise. Some kind of bang. She drops her head down to listen harder. There it is again - a muffled, constant thumping.
  She moves away from the door and back into her apartment, and the noise gets louder. A fast banging noise that’s familiar but not quite there in her head yet. She moves to the patio door and slides it open. The noise floods in and she looks down onto the solid crowd of zombies jammed into the pavement.
  Her eyes follow the line of them, realising they are all facing in the same direction; down to the main road… they are all facing and pushing towards Westferry Road.

She leans out to try and see down to the junction and gasps, as she takes in the amount of undead crammed into the area. Every single one of them is pushing towards the main road. She waits, leaning over the balcony; the
broom spear stick
still in her hand.

Slowly, the noise gets louder, until an Army type vehicle comes into view. Even from this distance she can see the outline of the giant vehicle and someone standing halfway out of the roof. Bright flashes flare out from the top of the vehicle and she realises that the man is firing a machine gun into the zombies.
  Her heart races as she watches the desperate struggle, the vehicle inching forward, bit by bit, as it gets closer to her junction. It looks like it’s trying to turn into her road, then comes to a halt as the pressure of the bodies force it to a stop.

The man on top spins round and Sarah watches a space slowly being created around the vehicle, as the machine gun cuts them down.
  Hope was surging through her, but it starts to ebb away as she realises that the vehicle is stuck and can no longer move forward.
  Sarah watches as the firing stops and the man drops out of view. Then, another man climbs out and stands on the top of the vehicle. He is followed by the first man again.

It looks like the man standing up is holding a large bag, he rests it down and she watches as he takes something out of it, then throws it high into the air.
  Sarah hears a loud bang and sees bodies flying upwards. The man throws something again and, after a few seconds, she hears another loud bang and more bodies are shot up and away.
  ‘Grenades, he’s throwing grenades,’ she whispers quietly.

The man is throwing them down into her road, and making a point of making them land at different points. Each throw is followed by a loud explosion and she watches as gaps start forming, where the bodies are blown away and more are felled by the blasts.
  The machine gun keeps firing and more and more of them are cut down, the machine gun appears to be focussing on keeping them away from the vehicle, while the grenade man is launching them down her road. Slowly, the gaps get bigger, as more damage is reaped on the undead.
  She wants to scream and wave to tell them she is here, but she can see the hopeless situation they are in and she watches in silence, willing them to break free somehow.

The anger bursts inside me, filling me with rage and cold hard fury. We are stuck in an ocean of never ending undead zombies. I fucking hate them. I fucking hate zombies. I hate the way they shuffle and groan. I hate the way they move fast without warning and change the rules as they go along. I hate their decomposing flesh and their rancid, putrid breath. I hate the drool that drips from their mouths and their red, bloodshot, dead eyes.
  Everything around me slows, the firing above my head becomes a slow
thump thump
and I see shiny spent casings spinning down gently past the window. I see a grenade rolling, end over end, through the air, until it drops down out of sight and an eternity passes before the slow explosion erupts ahead of me.

Bodies are floating through the air, limbs detached and flying off and drops of blood are strung out and arcing high.
  My eyes follow another grenade that spins in the air above me, going down into the road. As I follow the trajectory I see the tall apartment blocks further up the street and the outline of a person standing on one of the balcony’s facing towards us.

My eyes fix on that spot and I feel the person is staring straight at me. Suddenly, it’s not just anger inside me, there is hope too.
  I snap back to reality as I realise there is a gap in front of us, created by the GPMG spinning round and I engage the gears and push the Saxon and bounce high over the many fallen bodies. Just in those few metres we gain enough speed to slam into the crowd and send them backwards.

The grenades thrown by Dave have created gaps that we can use to our advantage, by pushing the zombies back. We gain a little more distance and I see Chris is firing directly in front of us again – he has created small gaps for the Saxon to power into.
  Little by little, metre by metre, we gain ground and I keep looking up to see the person still watching us from the balcony.

I select reverse gear and slam the Saxon back into the crowd behind us, crushing yet more of them and gaining a little space in front, to gather some speed, before I use the front as a battering ram to drive further into them.

The machine gun and the grenades do an amazing job of making little pockets of space which I use to force them back. The vehicle is tonnes of solid steel with more weight added by the numbers of people inside and, although the crowd is incredibly dense, they cannot withstand the force of the vehicle repeatedly hammering them.

The progress is painfully slow but at least we have progress.
  ‘PULL BACK AND HOLD FOR A SECOND,’ Big Chris yells and I change into reverse to force the Saxon backwards, impacting on the crowd that is surging forward to fill the gaps.
  ‘HOLD,’ Chris yells and the GMPG remains firing directly ahead of use, making little sweeps left and right at the same width as the vehicle.

The bodies are decimated right in front of me, torn limb from limb and cut in half, as the rounds slice through them with ease. Chris holds the firing position as a large hole is made with fallen bodies lying like felled trees on the ground.

The GPMG clicks empty as Chris roars ‘NOW.’
  I push my foot down hard and the vehicle pulls ahead with amazing speed and crushes the bodies under the huge tyres. We bounce up high from the impact on so many corpses, but the vehicle slams back down and keeps pushing forward. That extra speed we used has gained the momentum to drive us further ahead than I had hoped for and I look up to see the person waving from the balcony, as we get closer and closer. Then we are close enough to see the front of the building and a large plaque reading: “Millennium Tower” and that hope inside me gets stronger with every inch of ground we gain.
  The horde suddenly surges forward, moving with speed as they slam into the front of the Saxon, the bodies pushing hard against each other to make a solid wall.

Something is wrong with the GPMG, as it doesn’t resume firing from running empty. I try to pull back, but the Saxon moves inches, before losing power - such is the force of the bodies pushing against us.
  ‘We’re bogged in,’ I yell out. ‘We’ll have to fight through on foot.’
  I clamber out over the seat and try to get in the back, but there are too many people; no room to manoeuvre.
  ‘Get a few on the roof, to shoot down, then more at the back - doors ready,’ Dave yells out, as some of the recruits and Chris’s men clamber up through the GPMG hole and start firing down into the surrounding hordes.

I glance back through the windscreen and can see the zombies are stretching their arms up now and trying to reach up to the men on the top, their teeth bared; almost angry expressions on their rotting faces.
  ‘When I shout - push those doors open and fire out,’ Dave yells down.
  ‘Get to the back, two lines, with front line crouching and rear line standing,’ I yell out, as they try to organise themselves in the confined space, pushing and shoving, until they are formed up and ready.