The Undead. The First Seven Days (98 page)

Clarence breaks away and heads back to his vehicle as Blowers and Cookey drag the big vehicle gates open, then pull the huge gates of the inner wall open too; allowing the vehicles to be driven inside the safety of the Fort.
  The fuel tanker is directed into the gap between the walls, the other vehicles, headed by Clarence, drive slowly through the compound to the armoury and over to Malcolm waiting outside.
  ‘Big man, did you get anything nice for me?’ Malcolm greets his long time comrade with a massive smile and a warm handshake.
  ‘Well, we got a few bits: rifles, shotguns and loads of ammunition. First time I’ve loaded up with bows and arrows though,’ Clarence replies, going round to the back and opening the rear doors.
  ‘Strange times my friend,’ Malcolm muses as he starts going through the various items. ‘What the bloody hell are we going to do with shotguns?’
  ‘Yeah, I know, but Chris and Howie said to get everything,’ Clarence says.
  ‘I suppose they’ll be usable if they breech the walls and get inside - we’ll use them for defence only. Some of these rifles are good, Clarence.’
  ‘I suppose so, but a few dozen, heavy calibre, general purpose assault rifles would be better.’
  ‘Ha, and if we were in America we’d be able to pick them up in a supermarket too. Fuck me those blokes had some decent ordnance,’ Malcolm reminisces back to conflicts he had fought alongside the US Marine corps and their never-ending supply of decent weapons.
  ‘I bet there’s some secure places over there,’ the ex-soldier that went with Clarence interrupts as he helps them to unload the vans and carry the items into the large armoury room.
  ‘Mate, I don’t know your name,’ Clarence suddenly realises, as the ex-soldier walks by the side of him with armloads of shotguns.
  ‘Brian, nice to meet you,’ Brian grunts as he lifts the heavy load onto a workbench.
  ‘You too, listen, I’ll have to leave you to it, I’ve got some tasks to finish,’ Clarence says walking back out of the armoury and up to the police office.

He enters to find the inside even more frantic: radio’s blaring out with chatter, people talking loudly and Sergeant Hopewell trying to do a hundred things at the same time. Clarence frowns as he looks at the bedlam in front of him, trying to figure out the best way of getting her attention without simply pushing everyone else out of the way.

A cool hand touches his arm and he glances down to see Sarah smiling broadly at him, her clean white teeth framed by those soft pink lips.
  ‘You’re back,’ she says, simply.
  ‘I said I would be,’ Clarence replies.
  ‘I’m glad, I was worried,’ Sarah says.

Clarence doesn’t reply but stares for long seconds, losing himself in her dark eyes.

He gently puts his hand over hers, his giant mitt dwarfing her small, delicate hand. A tingling sensation prickles through him from the contact, a simple action, yet so endearing, that she steps forward involuntary until they are standing with bodies touching. In the chaos of the office, with voices shouting and people surging round them, they stand staring into each other’s eyes and slowly move forward, until their lips are but a tiny distance apart.
  ‘Did you need something, mate?’ Ted’s voice snaps them back to reality as he bustles into the office and heads over to the stacks of paper on the desk.
  ‘Err, I, err, yeah I think so,’ Clarence stammers, feeling a strange sense of loss at being so close to kissing her.
  ‘You think so?’ Ted asks, with a puzzled frown.
  ‘I’ll see you in a while, I’m glad you’re back, come and find me, if you get any spare time,’ Sarah says quietly and slips away, back into the furore going on around them.
  ‘Sorry Ted, I need lists of anyone with weapons training or experience - and the archers too.’
  ‘Yep okay, how are you going to do it?’ Ted replies, starting to leaf through a big pile of papers.
  ‘Can you get them all down to the front, near the gates?’ Clarence asks.
  ‘It’ll take a bit of time Clarence, it’s bedlam here, as you can see - and we’ve got no runners left. Ted replies.
  ‘The Saxon’s got a loudhailer, use the radio and get one of them to put it out so everyone can hear it,’ Clarence says.
  ‘Good idea, now why didn’t I think of that,’ Ted mutters as he hunts round for the radio. ‘P
olice office to the Saxon.’
Ted speaks into it.
  ‘
Saxon to police office, go ahead.’
  ‘Police office to Saxon, can you use the loudspeaker and ask the people that registered their firearms experience to report to the front of the Fort.’
  ‘Roger, confirm you want anyone with firearms experience to report to the front?’
  ‘Answer yes, also anyone with archery experience.’
  ‘Roger that, will do it now.’
  ‘Thanks Ted,’ Clarence rumbles in his deep voice, he walks out of the office and down to the armoury, reaching the door as the amplified voice of Nick Hewitt suddenly fills the air. Nick’s loud message  creates a general buzz and a sense of excitement within the camp.

People start moving about quickly, talking loudly. Those people with weapons knowledge find their families or partners and hastily kiss and hold them before heading off with grim faces; meeting others along the way and walking together, while talking.
  Clarence enters the armoury to see Malcolm, Brian and a few others, still bringing in the items from the vehicles.
  ‘I’m going down the front to start sorting out the people with weapons knowledge,’ Clarence informs them.
  ‘Do you need a hand mate?’ Brian says. ‘I did an instructor course a few years back…’
  ‘Definitely, Malc, can you spare Brian?’
  ‘Yep, crack on, we’ve got enough people here. Are you bringing them back here for weapons allocation?’ Malcolm asks.
  ‘Yeah, I’ll take a few with me and can you send more down, as soon as you get the chance.’
  ‘Roger, give me a few minutes to see what I’ve got,’ Malcolm replies.
  ‘Bloody quartermasters! All the same,’ Clarence jokes, as he leaves.
 

Cookey and Blowers disperse from the briefing, now long used to the sudden ferocious intensity of Howie. They both listen with awe as he gives clear instructions to the rest, giving them tasks, but leaving it to them how they get it completed.

They then stroll back and open the gates wide, to allow Clarence and the rest of the vehicles to get through into the Fort. The gates are closed after them and they once again resume their static guard on the front walk-through gate; watching as the men dart about with a renewed sense of pace and urgency.
  ‘Kind of feels weird standing here, while everyone else is running about,’ Cookey remarks after a few minutes.
  ‘Yeah, I know what you mean, but Nick and Curtis are doing the same up top with the Saxon,’ Blowers says.
  ‘What about Tucker, where’s he?’ Cookey asks.
  ‘Mr Howie asked him to sort out the food situation.’
  ‘He’ll be in his element then,’ Cookey says.
  ‘I expect so, talking of which, I am bloody starving,’ Blowers says.
  ‘Aye, me too,’ Cookey replies.
  ‘Aye?’ Blowers asks, picking up on the strange comment.
  ‘What?’
  ‘You said “aye”.’
  ‘Yeah, and?’
  ‘Nothing…’
  ‘What?’ Cookey asks.
  ‘No mate, nothing… it’s just that sailors say
aye
.’
  ‘Oh, for fucks sake, Blowers, don’t start.’
  ‘What? I never said anything, you can be a sailor if you like.’
  ‘Why would I want to be a sailor?’ Cookey asks.
  ‘So, you can say aye… and, of course, there’s all the sea-men.’
  ‘Oh, fuck off.’
  ‘You like sea-men don’t you Cookey…?’

‘Piss off, Blowers.’
  They eventually stop talking and lean back against the gate, to rest.
  ‘Did you hear what Clarence said about them heading north,’ Cookey says.
  ‘Yes mate, there’s going to be fucking shit loads of them coming for us.’
  ‘Yeah, does it bother you?’ Cookey asks, quietly.
  ‘I don’t know. If I think about it then, yeah, I guess it does, but I keep thinking of the other scraps we’ve had and we’ve done all right so far,’ Blowers replies.
  ‘There’s gonna be a lot more this time,’ Cookey says.
  ‘How can it be worse than London? There were thousands of them then, and besides, they can’t all attack at the same time can they?’
  ‘Eh?’
  ‘Well, like in London, we formed a circle and it’s only the first row that could actually attack us, the rest just waited and stepped in when the first lot got knocked down.’
  ‘Yeah, but we ain’t gonna be in a circle this time are we? We’re gonna be stood in a big line.’
  ‘Yes, but it’s still only the first row that can actually attack us, the others are behind them.’
  ‘I see what you mean. I’m sort of anxious about it, a bit scared and also kind of looking forward to it, like I want it to happen,’ Cookey says plainly.

Blowers glances over at his friend speaking from the heart.
  ‘Do you know what I mean, Blowers? I’m scared and terrified, but also excited and ready for it - all at the same time,’ Cookey repeats.
  ‘I know what you mean, mate, I feel the same. I think we all do, otherwise we’d have bottled long before now.’
  ‘That was a bit deep for you, Blowers.’
  ‘You like it deep.’
  ‘Oh, for fucks sake.’

‘We tie the wire onto the pin like this, then we have to make sure the grenade is firmly placed, otherwise the pressure on the wire will simply pull the grenade along the ground and not pull the pin out. Then we feed the wire over to the other side and position the second grenade, making sure the wire is taught,’ Dave gently pulls the wire until it stretches across the road. ‘Then we tie it off and again make sure the grenade is firmly placed, got it?’
  ‘Got it,’ Jamie replies.

They step back and move a few feet away; already the thin fishing wire is hard to see. Nodding with satisfaction, they move back down through the estate, heading towards the vehicle they left on the road to the Fort.
  ‘Where will we put the tanker if we get it?’ Jamie asks.
  ‘Either in the middle so we get the full effect of the blast and the shrapnel it creates, or closer to the exit onto the Fort road.’
  ‘Okay.’
 

The inside of the car is uncomfortably hot with warm, stale air; they both wind their windows down quickly, as Jamie pulls away, driving towards the Fort.

The ditches on both sides are almost finished with the diggers now working at the far ends, the freshly churned brown earth looking stark against the green flat lands. People from the Fort walk out over the flatlands carrying hand tools and heading towards the big patches of long grass. Clarence and one of the guards from the commune stand in front of the Fort talking to a large group of people, each of them holding a collection of rifles.
  A large group of archers are placed off to one side, some of them holding great bows the size of a man, others with smaller modern bows with pulleys and contraptions attached to them. They stand talking, pointing out to the flatlands and then back up at the walls behind them. Others in the group sort through the large boxes and packets of arrows.
  Dave turns back to take in the diggers and the men working with them, then back at the rows of workers coming from the Fort towards the long grass; Clarence speaking to the large groups and showing them the weapons, the archers making ready. Now, more people are filing out from the gates, carrying long, sharpened spikes and loading them into the backs of vehicles waiting nearby. Dave recognises the engineers carrying buckets of small, sharp, twisted metal foot traps and loading them into the buckets.
  Jamie stops the car near the front, they climb out, and Dave walks straight over to Howie.
  ‘Mr Howie,’ Dave says.
  ‘Dave,’ Howie greets him back with a genuine smile. ‘How did you get on?’
  ‘Good, the estate is all set.’
  ‘Is Jamie okay?’
  ‘Very good, Mr Howie, very capable.’
  ‘Takes after you, mate.’
  ‘They must be the spikes for the ditches.’
  ‘Yep, they’ve worked bloody hard getting them done so quickly, just got to get them driven in now. We’ve had to get a lot more people involved, which I didn’t want to do, but we don’t really have a choice if we want all these things to happen. The first load of caltrops are ready too, Clarence and that chap… Brian, have got the lists of all the people with weapons experience and they are checking to make sure they won’t shoot themselves in the foot, or someone else for that matter… then we’ve got the archers over there. Clarence found some good supplies and some of them had their own kit with them. I don’t know if they’ll be any good, but it gives them hope and something to do.’
  ‘You’ve got a lot done,’ Dave remarks.
  ‘Yes, we have,’ Howie admits. ‘Ted is rounding up some plumbers too, we’ll find out if we can rig some pipes up in the deep ditch after the last bank, for flame throwers.’
  ‘Is that for the fuel tanker?’ Dave asks.
  ‘Yes, well the petrol from the fuel tanker anyway, I heard you had plans for the tanker?’
  ‘You can have the fuel first, I just want the vehicle.’
  ‘Don’t you need fuel in it to make this blow up?’ Howie asks.
  ‘No, the fumes trapped inside the pressured container will be enough.’
  ‘Oh, so we can use all the fuel then?’
  ‘Well, maybe just leave a little bit in there, if that’s okay, Mr Howie.’
  ‘No worries, mate - I don’t know if the flame throwing idea will work, surely we’ll need to store the fuel, then pump it into the pipes, and then if we put holes in the pipes for the flames to come out off, won’t the fuel just leak out? Also, how does it get ignited? And wouldn’t the flame just shoot back inside the pipe and blow the whole thing up?’
  ‘Yes, yes, yes and yes, and you would need ignition from a distance, otherwise the person doing the igniting would get blown up and yes, it would all blow up.’ Dave replies.
  ‘Oh, I see,’ Howie says, with a frown.
  ‘But, you could just lay hoses down in the ditch and fill them with petrol. Put containers or buckets and other things filled with fuel: grenades, bits of metal, nails, screws - anything sharp and ignite it from a distance. The whole thing will go then and the steep sides of the ditch will force the pressure wave and explosion straight up and not out to the sides.’
  ‘Bloody hell, Dave - you really like blowing things up, don’t you.’
  ‘Yes, Mr Howie,’ Dave replies, flatly.
  ‘We’ll do that then - how about the cannon? Do you think you can get them working?’
  ‘They already work, it’s just a matter of knowing
how
they work, having the right mix of powder, charge and then what we use to fire at them. I’ll start looking at them now.’
  ‘I’ll get some coffee up to you,’ Howie says.
  ‘Okay, thanks, Mr Howie.’ Dave heads into the Fort and finds Jamie talking with Cookey and Blowers.
  ‘What’s next?’ Jamie asks him.
  ‘Cannon,’ Dave replies.
  ‘Like two peas in a pod, them two,’ Blowers remarks as they watch Dave and Jamie walk off towards the steps.