Zombie Castle (Book 1) (9 page)

It was not yet midday on day two, but by the time Tom and his family were setting out for the moors, more than half the population of the UK had succumbed to the virus as it raged uncontrollably like a wildfire sweeping through a tinder dry forest.

We kept the radio tuned into the emergency broadcast but it was still repeating the original message. We turned down the volume until it was just background noise but so that we would hear if the message changed. Becky also kept checking her phone but it continually showed ‘No signal’.

‘I can see another car coming,’ I said quietly, and relayed the information to Shawn via the radio. A silver Ford Mondeo estate car was approaching down the narrow country lane. It was an old model and had two surfboards attached to its roof rack. I slowed down and the other vehicle did the same, until we were about fifty metres apart from each other.

We all sat there for a while. I was unsure about what to do next. We could always just squeeze past each other and continue on our journeys but somehow making contact seemed the right thing to do. If nothing else, we could use the opportunity to exchange information.

I flashed my lights, hoping that the other driver would interpret this as a friendly gesture. They returned the flash.

‘Oh well, here goes nothing,’ I muttered to myself. I put on my mask and stepped out of the car. Shawn joined me.

Two young lads stepped out of the Mondeo and started to walk towards us. When they were about twenty metres away I held up my hand. ‘That’s far enough please, we don’t know if you’re infected.’

‘We don’t think we are,’ one of them replied. ‘We’ve listened to what the broadcasts and internet feeds that are still working have said. But the internet went down about an hour or so ago. We haven’t been near anyone, but we’ve seen enough to know that it’s true and that there are zombies walking about. It’s getting fucking freaky out here!’

‘Where have you come from?’ asked Shawn.

‘Scotland,’ said the other one. ‘We’ve just driven down to try out the surfing. We were driving through the night and didn’t know what was happening until a few hours ago when we got bored with listening to my music and turned the radio on and heard the emergency broadcast.’

At that point, they explained, they’d suddenly realised that the roads were unnaturally quiet. They’d checked Facebook and YouTube and seen enough crazy videos to make them turn around and head back for home. They’d been prevented from doing so by a massive crash about ten miles back up the road, which appeared to have just happened. They’d been about to get out and help when they’d seen one of them feeding on someone right in the middle of the road.

‘We panicked,’ the lad said. ‘We just turned off the main road and ran into a field, smashing through the fence. Luckily it’s been really dry lately so we managed to get across a few fields until we found another road. We haven’t got a map and as my phone’s map stopped working we got lost. We’ve learned enough to realise that we need to stay away from people, so we’ve been trying to find somewhere safe. The problem is, we keep coming across the zombies. They’re freaking everywhere! The last village we went through, we had to run two of them over to escape. They surrounded the car as soon as we stopped at a junction.’

I looked back at their car. It did look as if it had been through a lot; it was coated in mud and the front bumper and bonnet had big dents in them. Most of the body panels were damaged and one of the wing mirrors was hanging off.

I thought for a second. These guys had been driving through the night so they couldn’t have been in contact with anyone. It was pretty much the same as it had been with Shawn. We’d been in contact with other people but so far had shown no signs of being infected. We were, I concluded, incredibly lucky.

According to their story, there had been infected people in the villages they had passed through and they had seen more of them further up on the main road at the scene of the crash. This confirmed the scale of the outbreak; it just had to be everywhere. The radio report had spoken of it being a global event and that had to be true. It couldn’t just be confined to this remote part of Cornwall. Logic dictated that the infection rate in the towns and cities must be almost 100% if we were coming across them in reasonably remote places.

I took a deep breath and spoke. ‘What do you want to do lads? Neither of you has a Scottish accent so why were you driving from there? My name’s Tom by the way, and this is Shawn.’

They both looked relieved. ‘Hi,’ said one. ‘I’m Andy and this is Chet. We’ve been in Scotland for the past week or so checking out the surfing and sleeping in the car. Chet got a call from a mate of his telling him how great it was round here so last night we decided to pack up and head down.’

‘If you don’t mind me saying, you don’t look like typical surfers,’ I said, eyeing them both.

‘Why?’ Chet replied indignantly, ‘Because I’m Indian and he’s overweight?’

I had to laugh. I shook my head. ‘No! Well there is that, BUT I was about to say you both look too sensible to be sleeping in cars and chasing the surf.’

Andy chipped in, ‘I’ll have you know weight’s an advantage when it comes to surfing! But to be fair Tom, you’re right. We were both getting fed up with sleeping in the car; it just sounded fun when we came up with the idea. Chet’s mate is staying at his parents’ holiday home and he’s got spare bedrooms, so we jumped at the chance of a soft mattress.’

Shawn looked at them. ‘Where were you going to go when you decided to turn round?’

‘We’d decided to head back to the student house we share in Birmingham. We haven’t got any family around. Chet’s still live in India and my parents have buggered off on a round the world cruise.’ He paused then looked upset, saying quietly, ‘I hope they’re ok.’

‘Zombies!’ shouted Becky suddenly, and we all started and looked round. A zombie was pushing its way through the hedge close to the car. Looking through the gap we could see more behind it. Chet and Andy watched open mouthed as I ran up to it, gripped it tightly by the hair with one hand and drove my knife through the side of its head with the other. I examined it as it lay sprawled on the ground. It was female and was dressed like a serious rambler with walking boots and proper hiking trousers. There was even a rucksack on its back.

‘Look Shawn,’ I pointed out, ‘She hasn’t been bitten as far as I can tell. She must have been infected another way. This virus is out of control! You haven’t been near anyone who’s infected and neither apparently have these guys (I pointed to Andy and Chet). We must have been incredibly lucky not to pick it up back at that campsite we were on. We need to set off for the moors now so that we can get ourselves organised.’

I turned to Andy and Chet and for the first time, noticed their faces. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t have done that two hours ago either. It gets easier.’ Coming to a quick decision I continued, ‘Look, do you want to come with us? We’re from Birmingham as well, so we may try to get back there….’

Shawn shouting, ‘Tom!’ made me turn. The other zombies must have been closer than I’d realised as more of them were now forcing their way through the hedge. It was a hawthorn and the vicious thorns were ripping through their flesh and their clothing. Oblivious to this, their horribly blank faces set in a kind of mute obstinacy, they pushed even harder in their desperation to reach us. I swallowed hard and Shawn and I stepped forward with our knives held ready.

The first few were relatively easy to kill because they were caught up in the thorns but more kept on coming. It dawned on me with horror that there were far too many of them and I started to panic. Frantically, I killed one and pushed it away and then just managed to get another before it took a bite out of my outstretched arm. I scrambled backwards and glanced at Shawn. He was in an equally precarious situation and was desperately trying to kill as many as he could while avoiding being grabbed. I heard the engine of my car start and thought, ‘Thank God, at least Becky will be safe,’ as I stabbed the nearest one through the eye.

I turned my head to see Shawn topple over, clutching a zombie by the neck to keep it from biting him. Suddenly the Volvo shot forward, and with a sickening thud, smashed into the zombies directly in front of me, knocking them over. It reversed, and with tyres squealing, rammed into the ones behind, clearing a space around Shawn.

That fantastic woman had kept her cool and thinking quickly, had realised that the only way to save us was to use the car as a weapon.

I thrust my knife into another one, and realising that Shawn was still in serious trouble, ran over and dragged the zombie off him. I dispatched it with a quick stab to the brain. I pulled Shawn to his feet and handed him his knife which he’d dropped then screamed, ‘Come on. Let’s get out of here!’

‘No!’ panted Shawn, pulling away from me. ‘Zombie Rule Number 1. Kill every one of the bastards that you can. If you leave one it could be the one that gets you later on.’

He flung himself forward and began to work his way methodically through the ones Becky had knocked to the ground. Some of them had mangled limbs and were twitching like fish out of water and others were attempting to stand up, their uncoordinated efforts making them look like drunks. If it hadn’t been for the fact that they were zombies it might have been comical to watch. After watching him kill the first few, I stepped forward to help.

I felt something yank me from behind and realised that a zombie had grabbed hold of my jacket. I felt its rasping breath against my neck as it tried to bite me. I spun wildly and shoved it away, then stumbled backwards clumsily, falling hard against the side of the car. Dazed, I lost my balance completely and fell over.

The zombie lurched forward with obscene eagerness, a greedy look on its face. It was heavy and it took all my strength to push it away and stop it from biting me. Its breath stank and I gagged. Its eyes were just six inches from mine, the normal blank gaze replaced by a look of burning hatred and hunger. The seconds passed and I felt myself weakening. I was struggling to push it away and its teeth were getting closer. A snarl escaped it and I tried to scream but no sound came out. I had nothing left. I was going to die.

Thwack! The zombie’s head jerked to one side as something hit it. Smack! It jerked again. The third hit made a horrible squelching sound and I watched as the side of the zombie’s skull caved in. It went limp and fell off me, then lay to one side, either dead or stunned. I wasn’t sure which, so I grabbed my knife and stabbed it for good measure.

I looked up. Standing over me, with his blood-flecked cricket bat gripped firmly in his hands, was my son.

What can I say? My ten year old son had just killed to protect me.

I stood up, my legs still wobbly, gave him a bear hug and said, ‘Thank you son, I’m proud of you.’

Becky stepped out of the car and I could see that, because she loved him, she was going to tell him off for putting himself in danger. Instinctively, I knew it would be the wrong thing to do. If he hesitated the next time it could get him or someone else killed.

I turned to her. ‘Don’t say it,’ I whispered urgently. ‘We should be proud of him. If he hadn’t realised the danger I was in and stepped forward I’d be dead now or about to turn into a zombie. In my eyes, he’s a man now.’

Becky protested, ‘But he could have….’

‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘He wasn’t and that’s the point. Come on. We need to get moving.’

By now Shawn had finished off the rest of them. They must have been a walking party who’d been infected at the same time as most of them were still carrying their rucksacks. Shawn used his knife to carefully cut the straps and remove them from their previous owners.

I noticed that Chet and Andy were still just standing there, off to one side. They were going to have to get with the programme soon or there’d be no point in them coming with us, I thought, irritated. Yes, it had all happened very quickly, but it had been my young son who’d had to step forward when it counted and they’d just stood there gawping like tourists.

Shawn must have been thinking the same because he said abruptly, ‘Come on you two. Lend a hand. Let’s check through these bags in case there’s anything we need.’

They seemed to pull themselves together and ran forward, eager to help. The bags contained a few useful items, including a small cooking stove, a quantity of hot drink sachets and some snack bars and food. They’d also been carrying various items of waterproof clothing and some survival blankets. All very handy, so we condensed everything down into two bags and threw them into Shawn’s car.

We explained again where we were going and the boys immediately agreed to follow us. And why not! In the middle of a zombie apocalypse I’d want to stick with proven zombie killers and we’d just given them an excellent demonstration of our group’s abilities.

I asked them to find a weapon so that they could help us next time. After searching their car they came up with a tyre iron and a screwdriver. I gave them a quick demonstration of the best way to kill a zombie and gave them a rough plan of the route we were intending to follow. They turned their car around on the narrow lane by backing it into the hedge and then followed us as soon as we’d passed them.

That morning we’d been four and now we were eight.

The journey from St Agnes to Bodmin took less than an hour when road conditions were normal.

Road conditions were not normal.

We were intentionally driving the ‘long way round’, taking care to avoid all the main roads. Becky had Shawn’s O.S. Map on her lap and was doing a fantastic job of guiding us through the countryside, avoiding as many villages and towns as she could. Whenever a turn was coming up she would tell me first and then notify Shawn via the radio. She’d also adjusted the mirror so that she could use it and I could just concentrate on the road ahead.

I was becoming increasingly worried about the children. After saving my life Stanley had come down from the adrenaline high caused by his actions and was now looking exhausted. Daisy and Eddie still seemed completely strung out by all the stress of the situation. Given everything that had happened, our interaction with the children had been confined to ordering them about and keeping them physically safe. We’d had no time to give any consideration to their emotional welfare. I was having a hard enough time trying to grasp the situation myself, so getting everyone to safety was my primary concern, and it would have to stay that way for the time being.