‘Quickly!’ Katie yelled to Sarah while both trying to haul a still dazed Chris up from the ground, aware that that the first wave of creatures would not be occupied for long. Behind the pack were hundreds more, filling the scrubland with their staggering bodies, each and every one of them groaning for blood.

  ‘Where to?’ screamed Sarah, looking around in panic. ‘Not the basement?’

  ‘...Yes! Now, quickl-‘

  Suddenly, another sound filled the air; a car horn, beeping repeatedly from the front of the bungalow.

  ‘It’s Ben!’ cried the teenage girl, letting go of her former boyfriend and rushing toward the narrow passage at the side of the building. In seconds she had turned the corner and was out of sight.

  ‘Sarah, wait!’ yelled Katie, struggling to keep Chris on his feet. ‘I need your help!’

  With her cries unanswered Katie Reilly scowled and swung the teenage boy’s arm over her shoulder.

  ‘Where’s...Pepper?’ murmured Chris, his puffy face lolling drunkenly. Katie ignored him as they lurched off in pursuit of the girl, reaching the corner of the bungalow and pausing for a split-second to look back and cry out.

  ‘Reg! Come on! Hurry! Reg!’

  The old man, standing halfway between her and a scrum of writhing bodies, stood his ground and gently shook his head. ‘Keep going, pet’ he said softly. ‘I’ll catch you up.’

  In the moment that their eyes met Katie knew that it was the last she would see of Reg Herbert. She wheeled away with tears in her eyes, using all her strength to hold Chris upright as they lumbered along the side of the building. Burned into her consciousness was a final image of the old man, standing defiantly in front of a mass of swarming, blood-soaked creatures.

  Reaching the front of the bungalow, Katie caught sight of her husband. He had already forced open the gate at the foot of the driveway and was helping Sarah into the back of a blue campervan. The engine was running and Harry was at the wheel, frantically glaring back up toward the building.

  ‘Hurry up!’ the big man roared. ‘They’re behind us too!’

  From the elevated driveway Katie was able to see a long way down the lane. Three hundred metres away and gradually moving up the hill were dozens more of the shambling creatures. Time was running out.

  ‘Katie!’ yelled Ben, sprinting up the driveway with the long-handled axe tucked into the side of his belt. ‘Jesus, are you okay?’ Before she could gasp an answer he took the swaying burden of Chris from her and pointed down to the open gate. ‘I’ve got him!’ he shouted. ‘Go! Get in the van!’

  Katie didn’t need to be told twice. She broke into a run and hurtled down the slope, almost losing her footing on the uneven surface. ‘They got Tony!’ she yelled as she ran through the gate, clambering into the van via the open side door. Sarah was already there, pressed as close to the back of the front passenger seat as possible. Katie avoided looking at her and flopped down at the other end of a long padded cushion, leaving a noticeable gap between them. Then she stared at the back of the brown/grey mane of hair in the driver’s seat. ‘Harry’ she whimpered, unsure of what to say. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Without turning around the grim-faced farmer merely grunted just as Ben arrived by the open door with Chris wobbling unsteadily beside him.

  ‘They got Tony...?’ queried Ben, gasping as he searched Katie’s face for an answer.

  ‘Get in the bloody van!’ snarled Harry.

  Katie stared at her husband and tears began to stream down her face. ‘And Reg too. He’s gone, Ben. He’s gone...’

  Suddenly, Chris’ body straightened and he pushed away from Ben. ‘Where’s Pepper?’ he blurted, turning back toward the bungalow with a wild look in his eyes. Before he could take another step Ben grabbed him by the arm.

  ‘Chris, no!’

  Using his superior strength Ben swung the teenager around and threw him through the open door onto the floor of the van. He fell in front of the two stunned females, landing much harder than Ben had intended, and when he looked up his face was a wounded mix of pain and shock.

  Ben felt terrible.

  Shaking, Chris clambered awkwardly to his feet, his darting eyes looking for a way past. Ben had already guessed what he was thinking and began to move back and forth like a wrestler, blocking every gap.

  ‘Please...’ whimpered Chris, his face crumpling.

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t let you! You’ll get yourself killed!’

  ‘Please...’ Chris begged again, every ounce of fight suddenly draining out of his body. Shrinking away from Katie’s consoling hands he sank to the floor of the van and curled into a foetal ball. ‘Please...’

  ‘Get that bloody door closed!’ roared Harry, and Ben threw a look over his shoulder. Zombies were beginning to appear from along the side of the bungalow, their stiff limbs jerking erratically as they emerged from the shadows and trudged down the driveway.

  ‘Fuck!’ yelled Ben, jumping into the van but immediately reaching back out for the door handle. His scrabbling, sweaty hands grabbed hold and pulled with all their might, letting go just as the door began to slide with a metallic groan.

  ‘Go! Go!’ he yelled, falling back inside as the door slammed shut, and a heartbeat later Harry’s foot stomped on the accelerator. Half a dozen cold dead hands slapped onto the rear window only to instantly disappear as the van lurched away, the spinning, skidding tyres covering Sarah’s stunned squeal.

  Gasping, Ben rose within the jolting van and tried to look out through the smeared glass. Falling away behind them was an endless stream of zombies that had followed them from the centre of the village; a festering, maggot-ridden parade of snarling monsters. And now others were spilling from the gate at the bottom of the bungalow to join them, forming one giant, undead army.

  ‘Jesus’ Ben muttered under his breath before turning back to the others. Chris was still curled up on the floor of the rattling vehicle while Sarah had drawn her feet up onto the seat and was covering her face with her hands. ‘You okay?’ he mouthed to Katie, who was staring at him with her chin quivering. She gave an uncertain nod and slowly exhaled while her white-knuckled fingers gripped the front of the padded seat. Then Ben glanced at the back of Harry Skinner’s head but before he could say a word the big man caught sight of him in the mirror and started to speak.

  ‘The boy was never going to make it’ he grumbled, his expression blank. ‘I know you could see it too; ‘e was never going to make it...’

  Ben didn’t reply. There was nothing he could say. Looking away from Harry’s reflection he leaned back against the side of the van and closed his eyes, trying desperately to lose himself in the rhythm of the rumbling engine.

  Incredibly, just ninety-four seconds before the group’s dramatic escape, Reg Herbert had managed to make his way to the open back door of the bungalow. The first wave of zombies had been occupied in ripping Tony Skinner’s body apart; tearing away bloody chunks of his flesh, gouging out his eyes and consuming his heart, liver and genitals. Now he existed only as a sticky red mess - but in a strange twist his demise had gifted something to the old man.

  Precious, invaluable time...

  Of course, Reg was still doomed and he knew it; nothing could change that. His wounded arm was useless and the rest of his pain-wracked body was riddled with disease. He was going to die here, but there were two things that he wanted before he drew his last breath.

  To see the others get away, and to decide his own fate.

  Sweating profusely, he staggered through the open back doorway and into the kitchen, still carrying the shotgun in his trembling fist. He slammed the door behind him and drew the bolt across just as a mass of scrabbling fingers scratched and scraped against the wooden surface. It won’t hold them for long, he thought, limping across the floor, but maybe it can draw some of them away from the others.

  Turning the corner into the hallway, Reg was then met by a familiar if unexpected sight. Sitting by the front door was Pepper, her ears pinned back in fright.

  ‘Hello, lass’ the pensioner croaked. ‘Wondered what happened to you...’

  The dog was whining and wagging her damaged tail, splashing blood from the tip where shotgun pellets had found their mark. The old man looked over her head and through the dimpled glass of the front door caught sight of a blue campervan passing by the front gate, pulling away from a crowd of staggering figures. His lips twitched with the start of a smile but a sound from behind stopped it materialising.

  The back door was being breached.

  Looking again at the quivering Labrador Reg Herbert then made the quickest decision of his life. He lunged for the handle of the front door, shouting as he swung it open: ‘Go on, lass!’

  Without a moment’s hesitation the dog turned and shot through the gap, hurtling past a slow-moving line of zombies that were spilling down the right of the driveway. She cut sharply in front of them, scrambling through the open front gate and directly into the other stream of dead filing up from the village. Reg watched as she darted between the legs of the trudging bodies and a heartbeat later her golden coat was lost from view. Unsure of her fate, the old man watched for another second before slamming the door shut.

  Needing the walls of the hallway just to stand up, Reg Herbert turned and staggered back into the kitchen just as the first few zombies tripped through the broken back door. The first three fell flat onto the floor, knocked off balance by those pushing from behind. Others then tried to scramble over the top, snarling and hissing as they got in each other’s way. Stuck for the moment in a bottleneck it would take only seconds for them to push through completely, but it was another few seconds for the old man to make use of.

  Gritting his teeth, Reg slid along the wall and opened the door to the basement. He slipped inside, pulling it to behind him while trying to ignore the frenzied growls on the other side. On the floor at the top of the stairs was a discarded chisel and he managed to kick it with his bare feet until the blade wedged under the bottom of the door. Then he turned to descend the stairs, immediately losing his footing in the shadows of the third step. Stumbling off balance, he tumbled headlong into the gloom.

  Down he fell, every jarring impact sending flashes of white-hot pain through his body. The shotgun flew from his hand and he heard it clatter as he landed hard on the floor below.

  Somehow, amid a world of agony, Reg Herbert groaned and rose to a kneeling position. He knew instantly that the swollen skin of his infected arm had split open; it was burning like fire as pus and infected blood seeped out into the bandage. Against all odds he managed to crawl across the floor, setting his spine against the rough basement wall. Amid the gloom of almost total darkness his shaking fingers found the butt of the shotgun and at that exact moment the door above shook under the impact of a languid thud.

  The chisel trembled, edging out by a millimetre.

  Down on the floor below Reg used his one good arm to hoist the shotgun onto his belly, putting the muzzle under his chin and holding it there. If he’d had more time he would have rigged up something easier; maybe used some string tied to the trigger...

  That very thought zapped a memory back into his consciousness; one from decades ago when he was stationed in Cyprus. One of his army mates had suffered a breakdown and had taken his own life following a bout of severe depression. Dennis ‘Andy’ Anderson, a baby-faced twenty-three year old from Wolverhampton, had done it using string elaborately hooked up to the trigger of his service rifle. With a picture of his cheating girlfriend in his top pocket he had pulled the cord and made one hell of a mess...

  The door above thumped again and Reg quickly cast the memory aside. Bending his right leg, he used his bare toe to find the stock of the rifle and in the darkness also found the trigger. Now all he was thinking about was Maureen, the woman who had been by his side for over sixty years. He imagined them together in happier times, on summer holidays in Scarborough and long weekends in London, drinking and dancing in smoky jazz clubs until the early hours.

  The old man smiled and took a final, deep breath as his toe pressed against the trigger. They wouldn’t be buried beside each other as he had wanted, but they would be together again.

  When the shotgun boomed seconds later no one living was around to hear it.

  ~ 9 ~

  Ben Reilly looked out of the shaking windows as the landscape sped by. Apart from the rattling glass and the thrum of the engine the inside of the campervan was eerily quiet, filled instead with an intense air of stunned sadness that was almost too much to bear.

  He wiped his eyes and tried to focus on the world outside. Blocked roads here and there had forced them into taking narrower lanes where overgrown hedges scraped against the van on both sides, but now it looked as though the way ahead was opening up. Even so, it was not the time for optimism. The all too recent losses of Tony and Reg would not allow it.

  As they neared a junction Katie Reilly left her seat and joined her husband by the window. Harry Skinner slowed the van and then drew it to a complete halt while they weighed up the options in both directions.

  In truth, there was really no choice at all.

  The left hand fork was blocked by a mass of wrecked cars that had collided in an accident, presumably on the day of the bombings. The line of vehicles, some of them burnt out, snaked away in that direction for as far as the eye could see. The right hand fork, leading slightly uphill, was scattered with cars too but was far less congested. It was the only possible way forward.

  Ben’s shoulders sagged. He closed his eyes and pressed his temple against the glass. The road to his brother’s place was along the left fork. Katie sidled closer, requiring little effort to decipher her husband’s very obvious body language. ‘Oh, Ben...’

  Taking a deep breath, Ben pushed away from the window and turned around to stare at the back of Harry Skinner’s head. ‘What do you think?’ he asked, just loud enough to be heard over the noise of the engine. ‘Left is a no go, but can you get through on the right?’

  The big man grumbled and wrenched the steering wheel clockwise. ‘I’ll give it a go.’

  Katie glanced at her husband, sensing his inner turmoil. She knew that if they wanted to find Matt now they would have to go on foot, which would mean leaving the van behind and probably the others too. Instead Ben had made a tough decision; to stick with the people that were with him now rather than gamble on finding his brother’s family alive. ‘We can’t risk it’ he said quietly, looking back out of the side window.

  As the van lurched up the sloping road they took in the decimated surroundings. Beyond the hedgerows were lines of half-demolished houses, fire-ravaged car husks and the now familiar sight of gnawed bones spread over areas of charred wasteland. There were random zombies away in the distance too, their clumsy gait unmistakeable.

  ‘Jesus’ gasped Ben, struggling to comprehend the carnage. ‘I kept telling myself that once we got out of the village everything would be okay, that we’d find other people and start to put things right. What the fuck was I thinking?’

  Katie leaned over and kissed him on the neck. As hard as it was to accept, she had pretty much forced herself to acknowledge the world as it was now. Her friends, her job and her work colleagues were all gone; things of the past that it didn’t pay to dwell on for any length of time. She had even come to terms with the fact that her mother was, in all likelihood, dead. She could only hope that when the end had come, it had come quickly. Perhaps the Alzheimer’s had been a blessing in disguise; maybe her mum had been spared the horror of knowing exactly what had happened to the world. And then Katie felt guilty; ashamed for hoping that the woman that had given her life had been obliterated completely in the first wave of bombings and not been reborn as one of them.

  ‘It was a stupid idea,’ Ben mumbled, interrupting her thoughts, ‘thinking Matt and Sandra would still be alive. Christ, poor Jack...’

  ‘Ben...’

  ‘We have to find other people. It can’t just be us, there’s got to be others somewhere. We have to find them and figure out how to get through this...’

  ‘We will...’ she said softly, leaning forward so that he could hug her. Then he lowered his mouth to her ear.

  ‘Is he gonna be okay?’

  Katie knew straight away that Ben was referring to Chris. The youngster was still curled up on the floor of the van, his puffy face hidden behind shaking hands. He had barely moved since the escape from Shoreham and even though his loud sobbing had ceased he still continued to shudder every few seconds. ‘I don’t know’ replied Katie. ‘I hope so. He loved that dog so much...’

  Ben nodded glumly and pointed his chin toward Sarah. ‘What about her?’

  The teenage girl was staring blankly ahead, her eyes vacant while her expressionless face trembled uncontrollably.

  ‘She worries me the most’ whispered Katie. ‘I don’t know how much more she can take. And then there’s Harry. Jesus, Ben. His son’s just died and if anything he’s too calm, acting like nothing’s happened…’

  Ben’s eyes narrowed and once more he glanced at the back of the big man’s head. Exhaling slowly, he whispered to Katie: ‘What exactly did happen back there?’

  Before she could say a word the front of the campervan bumped into something and jerked to a halt. The Reillys staggered slightly and reached for each other while Sarah pushed back in her seat. She looked around fearfully while Chris took his hands away from his face to stare outside.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Ben.

  Harry’s boot pressed down harder on the accelerator and the toiling engine began to whine. ‘Hang on’ he shouted. ‘The gap’s not wide enough.’

  Ben stumbled forward to see out through the windscreen more clearly. The back edge of a small abandoned car was blocking the way although it was slowly being pushed aside. Gritting his teeth, Harry continued to press his boot down and over the course of nine engine-revving seconds the campervan managed to scrape past.

 

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