Zombie Castle (Book 1) (7 page)

I noted with a sick feeling that her lungs had been pierced and a small amount of dark frothy blood was bubbling around the puncture wounds.

‘She’s not bleeding much,’ observed Shawn, for all the world as if we were in a lecture. ‘Now if this had been a normal person you’d expect to see gallons of blood pouring out.’ I now began to understand the reason for his gory experiment. The knowledge we were gaining would enable us to dispatch them more easily when it became necessary.

Shawn was clearly getting into his stride. ‘There must be a reason why they bleed so little, but for our purposes I guess all we need to know is that the only sure fire way to kill one is to destroy the brain, either by bashing their skulls in, or removing their heads. Or maybe suffocating them. I suspect taking the heart out would do it too but that’d be a bit tricky to carry off first time.’

‘Now let’s see how they hunt.’ He went back to his car, and after more rummaging returned with a small red towel and a tent pole.

I looked at him quizzically, as he tied the towel to the end of the pole.

Quietly, he made his way back to the car, holding the pole out in front of him. The zombie stopped thrashing about as the towel was dangled about six foot in front of it. As Shawn moved it, her eyes followed the red towel.

Placing the pole carefully down on the bonnet, he approached the car as quietly as possible. Then he suddenly clapped his hands together loudly near her head. Her eyes reacted instantly, swivelling towards the sound. It was clear that she would also have turned her head had it not been securely tied to the headrest.

‘Ok,’ said Shawn slowly, ‘That’s not such good news. They can see and hear; I’m not sure just how well yet but we’ll assume they can do both brilliantly until it’s proved otherwise. It won’t do any harm.’

Becky shouted suddenly, ‘I can see something moving!’ and we spun round to look. ‘Stanley spotted it as we were playing I spy,’ she explained.

I reached into the front of my car and removed the pair of compact binoculars I kept in the glove box. Lifting them to my eyes, it only took a few seconds to get them into focus.

‘I think we need to get moving,’ I said, as I handed the binoculars to Shawn.

About twenty zombies were heading our way along the road from St Agnes.

‘Surely we need to help him though?’ asked Shawn.

‘Who?’ I asked.

‘The child they’re hunting,’ he said, handing the binoculars back.

I looked again and saw with a jolt that a young boy of about ten was running flat out about twenty metres ahead of the zombies. As I continued to watch the gap started to widen, but then he stopped and looked around uncertainly, as if unsure about where to go. It was only when they started to get closer that he started running again. Now that he was nearer to us I could see the look of abject terror on his face.

‘What is it?’ asked Becky, trying to snatch at the binoculars.

‘Zombies. Chasing a young boy,’ I said, knowing exactly what her next words were going to be.

‘You need to go and rescue him! NOW!’ she shouted.

I looked at Shawn. He nodded grimly. ‘Let’s take my car.’

I turned to Becky, ‘Lock yourself in the car darling. If anything happens to me, just drive.’

Becky nodded, unable to speak, and the children, realising that I was about to head into danger again, started to cry quietly.

‘Put your thickest coat on for protection,’ said Shawn, pulling on a heavy duty waterproof jacket.

As I opened the boot of my car, he noticed the cricket bat sitting on top of the pile. Without hesitation, he walked over and grabbed it. ‘I think we might need this,’ was all he said. I snatched up my leather jacket and hurriedly put it on.

With no more time to waste we jumped into Shawn’s car and sped off towards the boy and the zombies.

‘How do we do this?’ I asked, trying not to sound nervous.

Shawn shrugged. ‘Fuck knows. I’ll stop next to him, you grab him and if any zombies get close we’ll either use the cricket bat or we’ll knife them in the head. Does that sound like a plan?’ He looked at me and I shrugged in my turn.

‘I suppose.’

We were only fifty metres away from the boy, but he’d stopped running when he’d seen us approaching. ‘Shit!’ I yelled. ‘They’re getting too close to him. We need to do something!’

Shawn drove his car towards the boy, and at the very last minute, flicked the wheel and pulled the handbrake on. He executed a perfect handbrake turn. In response the rear of the car spun around and smashed into the two zombies that were closest to the boy. The car was now between the zombies and the boy and pointing back to where we wanted to go.

I turned and looked at him, lost for words.

‘I didn’t know if that was going to work,’ he replied modestly.

Opening the door with a shove, I jumped out of the car and ran towards the boy. He was just standing there, tears streaming down his dirt streaked face, trembling with shock and fear. With no time for niceties, I picked him up and raced back to the car.

It was only when I tried to push him into the car that I realised my mistake. Shawn’s car was only a three door so there was no rear door for me to use. I glanced up to see a zombie just six feet away from me and getting closer all the time. I almost turned and ran at the sight of it. It was hideously burned and must either have been caught in the fire we’d seen or just walked heedlessly through it. What was left of its clothes was still smouldering and all the flesh I could see was either charred or burned away completely, with white bone showing in places. The creature was like something out of a nightmare and it was heading straight for me.

With a massive effort, I resisted the urge to run and took a step towards it. The knife was still in my hand and with a downwards stroke I rammed it into the top of its skull. It began to fall towards me, and filled with revulsion, I kicked out with my foot and shoved it away from me. Luckily, it fell backwards into the zombie behind it. Seizing my chance, I dived on to the passenger seat with the boy and screamed, ‘GO!’

Shawn put his foot down and the car sped back up the road with my feet sticking out of the open door.

Seconds later, the car slowed and Shawn said simply, ‘Well done mate, now let’s get out of here.’

I looked up and realised that we were back at my car. Becky had got out and was running over to us. I managed to push myself upright and lifted myself off the boy, who was looking pale and shocked. He gave no reaction but just sat and stared straight ahead. Becky enveloped me in a hug.

‘We need to make sure he hasn’t been bitten!’ said Shawn, climbing out of the car. ‘And we definitely need to go now,’ he said, pointing down the road at the horde of zombies, who were still making steady progress.

As I leant into the car to pull the boy out, Becky pulled on my arm to stop me. ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘Let me do it.’

I stood back and Becky crouched down in the car doorway. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but within seconds she’d managed to snap him out of his trance-like state and he’d got himself out of the car. Becky knelt next to him and gave him a motherly hug.

‘Shit!’ I said quietly to Shawn, ‘He might be infected. I never even thought. We could all have it now!’

‘Bollocks!’ he muttered. ‘I didn’t think about it either. Oh well,’ he shrugged, ‘It’s too late now, but we’ll need to be more careful next time. I’ve got some surgical masks in my Bug out Bag for this very eventuality.’ Noting my distress, he shook his head and chuckled, adding, ‘I’m the bloody prepper mate. I should know all this and I still forgot. Don’t be so hard on yourself. If we get away with it, and he’s not infected, then at least we’ll have learnt a valuable lesson!’

I nodded. ‘Where shall we go?’

‘Right, this is the best plan I’ve been able to come up with in the short time we’ve had so please feel free to add suggestions or correct me if you want. I think you should lead the way in your car because it’s bigger than mine and we might have to use it as a battering ram if there are any obstacles along the way. It’ll also stand up to knocking zombies over better than my car. We’ll try following the route we mapped out. If that route turns out to be blocked we’ll have to start making it up, but if we remain vigilant and stay away from the bigger population centres, we might be able to avoid the infected areas. I’ve studied how viruses spread as part of my prepping and it can’t have got everywhere this quickly.’

‘Why not?’

He smiled wryly and said, ‘Well we ain’t got it for a start. So that probably rules out an airborne infection. It’s most likely being passed by physical contact or contact with people in very close proximity, so that’s why we should use the surgical masks for the time being.’

The zombies were still about two hundred metres away. In fairness, this was still a hundred miles closer than any of us wanted them to be!

‘Let’s get going,’ I said hastily.

While we’d been talking, Becky had put the boy in the back of the car and he was sitting quietly between Stanley and Daisy. She walked over to us. ‘He hasn’t been bitten and he says he didn’t see anyone until the bad people hurt his parents and he ran away. I don’t think he’s been infected.’

Once more Shawn went to the boot of his car. He came back with another knife, some surgical masks and a two way radio. ‘The knife’s for you Becky, just in case, and I’ve got the other radio so that we can talk. The left turn’s just around the bend so keep checking your mirrors even though I should be right behind you.’ He pressed the call buttons on the radios to make sure they were both on the same channel, and passed the radio and knife over to me. We’ll put the masks on if we meet anyone else until we know for sure that they’re not infected. It’s not worth taking any risks.’

With no time to waste, as the zombies were getting closer all the time, we set off in the cars.

Once we were moving, Stanley and Daisy started asking questions again. Becky turned to them and said carefully, ‘Listen to me both of you, mommy and daddy need you to be very brave. Something’s turning people nasty and we need to get away from them. You mustn’t worry; you saw what a hero daddy was when he rescued Eddie. He won’t let anything happen to us. Now you need to be really quiet and let us concentrate so that we can find somewhere safe.’

I glanced in my rear-view mirror and saw that Shawn was right behind us. Then I looked at the faces of my two beautiful kids, filled with terror but trying hard to control their emotions. Finally I looked at Eddie, who was still looking too shocked to take anything in. He was a stocky lad, probably about Stanley’s age, with a mass of straight ginger hair which stuck up in places. His grubby, tear stained face was covered in freckles.

Who could blame him, I thought. He’s almost certainly seen his parents being eaten alive and only barely escaped himself and he’s been hunted by a pack of zombies.

‘Hi Eddie,’ I said gently. ‘My name’s Tom. How old are you?’

There was a long pause. ‘Ten,’ came the monosyllabic response.

All a bit much for your average ten year old to take in really, I thought. Oh well, looks like we have a new addition to the family.

I slowed down as the turning came up and we headed down a narrow single track road. I zoomed the map out on the sat nav so that I could get an idea of where we were and the direction we needed to take. We’d come down this road a few days before looking for a pub recommended on Trip Advisor, so parts of it were familiar to me.

As we rounded a corner I slammed the brakes on. A farm trailer was parked across the road, blocking our way completely. Shawn must have been on the alert because he managed to skid to a halt without hitting me. I sat there for a moment, gathering my shattered nerves back together.

I could see someone moving on the other side of the trailer, so I quickly donned my mask and made everyone else do the same. Then I stepped out of the car, my knife at my side in readiness. Before I closed the door I warned Becky to keep a look out and to shout if she saw anything.

Shawn, wearing his mask, joined me.

‘Hello! Is anyone there?’ I shouted.

‘Go away!’ came the response. ‘We’re not letting anyone through. For all we know you might be one of the terrorists.’

Shawn and I exchanged amused glances. ‘What do you mean, terrorists?’ I asked with incredulity.

A man came out into the open. He looked like a typical farmer and was wearing the standard boiler suit with a checked shirt underneath and green wellies on his feet. Nothing out of the ordinary, apart from the shotgun he was carrying.

‘We’ve heard about the attacks in town,’ he said, his face hostile. ‘And we’ve seen the fires they’ve started. We don’t want any of that element coming here so we’ve blocked the roads. There are no police close by so we’ve taken steps to protect ourselves.’

I stepped forward. ‘But you’ve got it all wrong; we’re trying to get away.’ I pointed at my car, ‘Look, I’ve got my wife and kids with me and another boy we’ve just rescued. Shawn here’s with us. We’re helping each other.’

The man gave no response. ‘It’s not terrorists,’ I persisted, ‘It’s zombies that are attacking. There are people turning into zombies and they’re ripping other people apart and eating them. Don’t ask me how, or why, but we need to keep going. The main road’s blocked and they’ll be heading this way soon.’

‘Please!’ said Shawn, ‘You have to believe us. They’ll be here soon!’

More people had appeared while I’d been talking and had been listening to what we’d been saying. Some of them also carried shotguns and one had a rifle.

The farmer shook his head and laughed. ‘How do you expect us to believe that? That’s ridiculous! You’re just making it up to try to get us to let you through. God alone knows what would happen then!’

Behind me I heard a car door open and close and I turned to see Becky walking towards us.

‘You need to listen to my husband!’ she said, her voice pleading. ‘It’s not terrorists or anything like that. I know it doesn’t sound credible but there are zombies. We’ve already been attacked and we’ve just had to rescue that little boy back there. Back on the main road we all watched another young boy kill his father by biting into his neck. We found the assistant at the petrol station feeding on one of the customers! You’re right to want to protect yourselves, but please, you need to let us through. I need to get my children somewhere safe. If you don’t believe us just go back up to the main road and see for yourself. But be careful. Don’t go near any of them.’