Zombie Castle (Book 1) (12 page)

It was nobody’s fault. Without time to prepare, the soldiers were deployed with only the vaguest orders to maintain public order and protect the general population. Not understanding what was going on, most were attacked and overwhelmed by the advancing zombie hordes. When the survivors eventually worked out what was happening and began to use their weapons to save their own lives, it wasn’t enough to make any difference. They were carrying only a basic load of ammunition, and had no access to new supplies. Assault rifles with bayonets fixed were converted into spears and clubs as small groups of surviving soldiers used their training to work together and fight their way to safety. Not many of them made it.

The Royal Navy fared better as it had numerous ships and submarines out at sea and therefore many were able to avoid the virus completely. As the top level command structure collapsed, it was down to the individual skills of the commanders to ensure that their crews survived.

Sitting on his rock in the middle of Bodmin Moor, Tom was unaware of any of this. All he cared about was keeping his family safe and well, so his primary concern was figuring out the best way to do that.

Staying where we were would probably be ok for a day or two, but we were in an exposed position. If any zombies managed to find us, even with defensive measures in place, these would only serve to slow them down. They wouldn’t be enough to protect us in the long term. The weather on the moors was also known for being extreme at times, one of the reasons why the military had based so many training operations there. Come wintertime it would not be a good place to be based with your wife and three young children.

We needed supplies and suitable shelter. We couldn’t possibly take on and destroy millions of zombies. The only option was to separate ourselves from them and try to survive as best we could.

But how?

I carried on thinking.

Under Shawn’s supervision the camp was really taking shape. He’d surrounded the place with a two strand wire fence, using the many trees that surrounded the old sheep pen as posts. He told me later that the idea had come from watching the ‘Walking Dead’ TV series, where they seemed to do that a lot at overnight camps when they were hiding in woods!

We’d rebuilt the wall to the best of our abilities and Becky and the children had been busy cutting bracken and heather to use as mattresses. We’d even managed to use Chet and Andy’s surfboards to create an effective barrier to block the entrance.

Shawn called me down from my lookout post, as he wanted us all to carry out an inventory of what equipment and supplies we had. I wasn’t too concerned because even at ground level you could still see for quite a distance all around.

Before we’d even begun, I’d spotted a potential problem with what we were about to do, so I decided to raise the issue first. ‘I think we need to decide before we proceed: are we treating ourselves as a group and sharing everything equally, regardless of who owned it in the first place?’

Shawn shrugged. ‘I’m happy to do so, but we’ll all need to agree on this now. It’ll save any arguments in the future.’

Andy spoke up, ‘To be fair, Chet and I hardly have anything to contribute apart from a few Pot Noodles and some rice. We were mainly living off fish and chips and beer when we were in Scotland. We’ve got a camping stove but we hardly used it. I’m up for sharing, but you have to understand that we don’t have a lot to offer.’

‘You’re right Tom,’ said Shawn, ‘I don’t have much packaged food to offer either, but let’s not worry about food too much; we’re surrounded by it. I love foraging and without even trying, I could get enough food just from this immediate area to give us all a good meal. I was thinking more in terms of the equipment we have. It would be better to spread it equally among us, otherwise the loss of one car or one bag could be disastrous.’

‘Fair point Shawn,’ I replied, ‘we can’t argue with that logic.’

In the end very little had to be distributed. We divided the food we had into equal piles and put a similar sized bag into each car.

It was the weapons we had the biggest discussion about. Shawn had one extra knife in his bag in addition to the ones he’d given to Becky and me and apart from the machete, two axes and my probably useless ‘knife on a stick’, all we had was Stanley’s cricket bat, some tyre irons and some screwdrivers.

Chet took the hand axe and that left Andy with a choice between the machete, a knife and a long handled axe. He chose the machete because with its sheath he could attach it to his belt. We decided that the axe should be carried as an extra weapon by whoever was on guard duty. Shawn put the extra knife on his belt as a spare.

We knew the knives were effective for killing zombies, but weren’t keen on the fact that you had to get so close to do it. A weapon with a longer range would be safer, but for the time being we would have to manage with what we had.

When Daisy walked up to me and whispered that she was hungry, we realised how late it was getting and that none of us had eaten anything substantial since breakfast. Chet and Andy hadn’t even had that, as they’d driven through the night straight into the zombie apocalypse.

As it was the middle of summer, there were still a few hours of daylight left, so while Becky and I set about heating up pans of food on the two gas cookers, Shawn foraged some flowers and leaves to make a tasty and colourful looking salad.

With the help of the children, he gathered up a stack of dry deadfall branches and quickly got a reasonably smoke free fire going. It wasn’t cold but the reassuring warmth from the flames and the crackle of the dry tinder made the camp feel a little cosier. As we all tucked into the meat and pasta we’d prepared, we complimented Shawn on how tasty his salad was. Even the kids had tried and enjoyed it.

It consisted, he explained, of dandelions, daisies and navelwort, all extremely nutritious and plentiful at this time of year. Impressed, we all insisted that he should start sharing his knowledge. He tried to make a joke of it, pointing out that this would be a good idea as he might be dead tomorrow. Nobody laughed. We were only too aware of the precariousness of our situation.

After we’d eaten, one of the others went to keep a lookout and Becky and I got the children, who by now were all extremely drowsy, settled down at the back of the shelter under some blankets. It wasn’t long before they were all fast asleep.

As darkness began to fall, the rest of us sat around the dying embers of the fire. We were all aware that it was best not to keep a blazing fire going, as this might advertise our presence to others, alive or dead. Realising that it was pointless trying to keep a lookout in the increasing gloom, we agreed that while the rest of us sat around the circle of stones containing the remains of the fire, one of us would remain standing and stay alert. That, we reasoned, ought to suffice.

We’d gathered together all the torches in our possession and shared them out. I had a very powerful LED torch which I kept in the car at all times and between us we had a variety of head torches and smaller handheld ones. For the moment there were enough for us all to have one each plus a few spares.

Shawn went to his car and returned with several bags. ‘This is one of the goodies I told you about earlier. It’s a crossbow. I always keep it broken down and hidden in various places around the car.’

‘Why?’ asked Chet, intrigued.

‘Well, although it’s not illegal to own one, it’s easier to keep it disassembled than have to explain why you’ve got it. Under the current law it’s illegal to hunt with them in the UK but most preppers, myself included, favour keeping a few of them around, because let’s face it, when the shit hits the fan who cares! Now I’d say a whole ton of shit has hit the fan so it’s probably time to get it out. They’re good for large and small game and obviously for defending yourself. Remember ‘The Walking Dead’? It was the only thing Daryl ever used.’

We watched as he removed various pieces from the bags and deftly assembled it. ‘They’re easy to maintain,’ he explained, ‘and if you run out of bolts it’s not impossible to make your own.’

He passed it round so that we could all handle it. It was a deadly looking piece of equipment, painted with a camouflage pattern, and with a small telescopic sight attached to the top of it. He explained that it would easily be powerful enough to kill something at a distance of fifty metres or even more, but then the obvious problem would be accuracy. At a distance of twenty to thirty metres he thought he should be able to get in some consistent headshots.

I handed it back to him. ‘That’s a great weapon. I think we should see if we can all get one. I feel a bit happier now that we’ve got something that’ll kill them from a distance. But I did a lot of thinking while I was on lookout duty, and I think we all need to discuss and agree on the best course of action to take.’

No one commented, so I continued, ‘We don’t know how far this thing has spread, but from what we’ve seen today I think we’ll have to assume that most people are now dead or zombies. There will also be other people who’ve been lucky enough to survive. Perhaps they’re having the same conversation as we are now.’ I looked at Shawn, ‘Please feel free to interrupt if you disagree.’

He nodded and said, ‘Yes, but carry on. It’ll be interesting to hear someone else’s perspective on what’s happened and what we can do. In the groups I belonged to no one ever agreed on anything apart from the fact that it was going to happen at some point. It’s vitally important we do now. To survive this situation we’ve all got to be on the same page.’

No one else said anything, so I added, ‘We can’t stay here long term; we’re too exposed. If a pack of them appeared over that hill we’d have no choice but to move on, and if that happened in the middle of the night it could easily go wrong. What we need is somewhere that can give us proper shelter. We also desperately need supplies and, if we can find them, some decent weapons.’

I looked around. Everyone was nodding. ‘I imagine that the one thing that will be in plentiful supply will be food. Every supermarket and shop in the land will have full shelves and hardly anyone will be needing it. We should be able to take whatever we need, when we need it, but in the long term it would be sensible to source a large supply that will keep us going for a long time. That would avoid the risk involved in constantly going out and gathering it.’

‘We’re going to have to find some better weapons. Your crossbow is great Shawn; a real asset. I have a few shotguns at home, but I can’t for one moment imagine that it’s worth driving all the way to Birmingham to collect a few shotguns, when there must be plenty of them around here. Most farmers have shotguns, and possibly rifles, and what about the police or the army? If we know where to look, they must be around here somewhere. We could just get the Yellow Pages out and find the nearest barracks or gun shop.’

I paused, then asked the question: ‘So where do we go? Well, we also need somewhere that will offer constant protection so that we’re not living in fear of zombies appearing all the time. We need solid walls. While I was up on the rock, I went through all the places I could think of. But most of the obvious places: prisons, hospitals and army bases, are probably full of zombies already. We need to go somewhere where people don’t live so that we can clear it of zombies when we get there.’

The others leaned forward expectantly.

‘We need to find an intact castle!’ I said.

Everyone just looked at me.

Everyone continued to stare at me then Shawn smiled and started quietly clapping.

‘Well done mate,’ he said, grinning. ‘I don’t think anyone could have put it any better. You’ve just described the best way to survive a zombie apocalypse. It is, when you think about it, just common sense after all. But as my old man always said: ‘There’s nothing common about sense!’ My mates and I used to talk about this over many a pint in a pub, but the one major flaw in your plan is the ‘intact castle’ bit. Every castle I’ve ever visited has either been a ruin or it’s got so many holes in its walls, it would be impossible to defend. There’s nowhere suitable for what you want!’

Becky interrupted him smiling, ‘Shawn, do you or any of your friends have children?’

‘No, why?’

‘Where do you live?’

‘Bristol, why?’

‘Have you ever heard of Warwick Castle?’

I smiled as I realised she knew exactly what I was on about.

Shawn frowned. ‘Not really, is it in English Heritage or The National Trust? I think I’ve visited most of their places on my travels, so I may have been there, but it doesn’t spring to mind straight away.’

Chet interrupted now. ‘I know it! When my parents came over to visit last year we went there! Shawn, it’s completely habitable. It’s got proper walls, gates, moats, everything. It even impressed my parents who are a bit snobbish and say that Indian culture outdoes everything else! If it’s still like I remember it, it would be a great place to use. It’s run as a big tourist attraction and is owned by some big group.’

Becky nodded eagerly. ‘That’s right, and it’s in Warwick; hence the name. Tom and I have taken the kids there many times. It really is in remarkable condition given that I believe it was originally built by William the Conqueror. If we could get the gates closed it would be pretty much impregnable to zombies. The accommodation area’s huge and in good condition. Great idea Tom darling!’

She turned to Shawn who was looking a little crestfallen. ‘Shawn, don’t worry, if you haven’t got kids or you’re a tourist you probably won’t have visited the place.’

We all sat in silence for a while, lost in our own thoughts.

Shawn spoke first, ‘I think, unless we can think of somewhere closer, it’s a great plan.’ He pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked it then sighed because it still wasn’t working. He shoved it back into his pocket. ‘This would be a great time for a bit of googling. I bet within half an hour we’d have all the information we needed to make the right decisions. Can we think of anywhere similar to Warwick Castle? It’s a great idea, but there might be somewhere even better….I tell you what, let’s get the map out. It might remind us of somewhere we’ve been.’