‘No. They-’

  Katie stopped in mid-sentence as another sound froze her tongue in her mouth. Suddenly ducking down, she flattened her body against the dusty boards as Reg did likewise. He began to crawl over to her, wincing with each movement as the loft floor creaked beneath his weight. Lying next to each other and staying as low as possible, they both looked back over the edge.

  Through the open wall of the cattle shed below appeared three shapes, three figures moving differently to the aggressors from before. These individuals were moving slowly but cautiously.

  Katie’s heart soared.

  ‘Ben? Ben!’ she called, unable to withhold her excitement. She sat upright, leaning back on her haunches and waving her hands above her head. ‘Oh, thank God! Quickly Reg..!’

  Wasting no time, they hauled the ladder back over the side of the loft, lowering it down until it reached the muddy floor. Reg smiled and gently touched Katie’s shoulder as one of the three rushed toward it with a beaming smile on his face. Sure enough it was Ben, although the old man had no idea who the teenagers with him were.

  Ben Reilly reached the top of the ladder in no time at all and threw his arms around his wife, squeezing so tightly that the breath rushed out of her. ‘Christ, I thought I’d lost you…’

  ‘Are you okay?’ stuttered Katie. ‘You’re not hurt..?’ Wide-eyed, she stared at his shirt, which was wrinkled and stained with traces of red. Ben shook his head. ‘Thank God’ she said, embracing him again and looking over his shoulder. Down below the teenage girl had placed her foot on the bottom rung of the ladder and was staring up with fear in her eyes. Katie gazed at both youngsters in turn. ‘So, who’re these two?’

  ‘Oh, this is Sarah and Chris. They-‘

  At that exact moment a groaning figure appeared from the shadows behind Chris, a lone creature that shambled forward with its arms outstretched.

  ‘Look out!’ yelled Katie as the thing, possibly a former mechanic, lunged at the youngster, cold fingers tearing clumsily at his hoodie. Chris screamed and wheeled away, ripping free from the monster’s grasp. Undaunted, it came snarling at him again, paying no attention to the others while blood from a torn larynx dripped down its blue overalls. Its instincts were simple, primal.

  The boy was nearest and therefore he was prey.

  Six feet away, terrified for her own safety, Sarah had already scrambled halfway up the ladder, making the rungs creak beneath Ben’s feet. She was blocking his route back, stopping him from climbing down to help.

  ‘Sarah!’ Ben yelled. ‘Move aside! I can’t...‘

  But the girl, frozen with terror, heard nothing.

  ‘Get it away from me!’ screamed Chris, staying just out the thing’s reach while moving from side to side like a rodeo clown.

  With everything in the balance one man reacted quickest. Scrambling across the loft, Reg grabbed the rusted pitchfork and flung it over the side. It flipped over twice and landed with a dull clang as he shouted out: ‘There, lad! Take it!’

  Chris McReedy saw the object land and heard Reg’s voice just as he ducked away from another lunge, a lunge which sent the creature clattering blindly into the corrugated metal wall. Seizing his chance he reached for the worn handle of the pitchfork and swept it up from the muddy ground. By the time the thing had turned around Chris was holding it up high, the prongs aimed at its chest.

  ‘Get away!’ he yelled, but the creature was neither frightened nor deterred. Instead it pressed forward, impaling itself on sharp prongs which pierced its soiled overalls and punctured the rotting flesh of its upper torso. A discharge of putrid gas and pus trickled free as one prong speared its heart and the other embedded in a festering lung. And yet the thing still tried to advance.

  Amid the chaos Chris could hear someone screaming and then realised it was himself. In desperation he pushed hard on the handle of the pitchfork, driving it deeper still. The metal head crunched into the thing’s sternum, ripping away rotten cartilage on either side and folding the ribcage in on itself. He shoved again, this time dislodging vertebrae in the creature’s spinal column, doubling it over. Effectively snapped in two, the mindless thing that had once been a friendly mechanic named Terry Wesson fell like a broken mannequin onto the muddy floor.

  Chris wrenched the pitchfork free; horrified to see that even with its spine destroyed the creature was still moving. Its teeth gnashed and hands clawed as the teenager jabbed into the decaying body again and again and again. Then, with a final yell, the youngster drew the prongs free and thrust them diagonally into the creature’s face. Amid a sound of rupturing cartilage the awful groaning abruptly ceased.

  Chris dropped the handle of the pitchfork and staggered back in horror. Feeling faint, he gazed up at Sarah, reading the terror on her face as she gripped the sides of the ladder and stared back at him. Ben, Katie and Reg were looking at him too, none of them able to say a word. The skirmish had taken only seconds, yet all of them knew that they were seconds that would be branded forever on Chris’ soul. For the briefest of moments there was only haunted silence.

  And then the teenage boy suddenly turned away, an unstoppable jet of vomit exploding from his mouth and arcing onto the muddy floor.

  The others descended the ladder one after another, gathering around Chris as he leaned over and retched repeatedly until only dry honking sounds remained. Katie and Sarah sympathetically rubbed his back as Ben and Reg quickly moved ten feet away from under the shade of the building and looked out in every direction.

  ‘See anything?’ asked Ben.

  ‘No’ said the pensioner, ‘but I’d be surprised if we weren’t heard…’

  ‘Yeah’ Ben agreed, biting his lip. ‘Uh, listen Reg, I need to thank you. For keeping Katie safe...’

  The old man shrugged as if it were nothing. ‘If we can’t help each other then we might as well all give up now. Anyway, I’m bound to need your help at some point...’

  ‘And you’ll get it. Anyway, how’s the head? Looks painful.’

  Reg touched the cut on his forehead and flinched slightly. ‘It’s not too bad. It’s nothing really. Your wife did a good job cleaning it up...’

  Both men looked toward the others as Chris finally stopped retching and stood up straight between the two women.

  ‘Can you keep an eye out for a minute?’ asked Ben, patting the old man on the back. ‘I’m just going to talk to him for a sec.’

  Reg nodded and watched Ben return to the ruined building before turning back to scan the surrounding area.

  Katie watched Ben approach, reading his facial expression as he mouthed ‘two minutes’. She nodded, putting her arm around Sarah and leading her outside to join Reg, allowing Ben to talk to the teenage boy alone.

  ‘You okay?’ asked Ben as the very pale youngster stared blankly at him.

  Chris’ lip quivered and his eyes began to water. ‘I didn’t mean to kill him,’ he sniffed, ‘he just wouldn’t stop…’

  Ben placed a hand on the boy’s bony shoulder and looked directly into his eyes. ‘Hey, it wasn’t your fault, mate. We all saw it. You didn’t have a choice.’

  Chris turned away, sobbing. ‘What is going on Ben..?’

  The older man could only shake his head, still without an answer to anything they had seen. Deep in thought, they were silent for a full minute before Chris spoke again and gestured outside toward Sarah.

  ‘Did you know that she dumped me this morning?’

  ‘Uh, well, no. I mean, I thought someth-’

  ‘When it happened I didn’t think the day could get any worse. Shit, how wrong was I?’

  Ben sighed. ‘Well, she needs you now, that’s for sure. We all do.’

  Chris wiped his eyes. ‘Ben, be honest with me? Do you think things will ever get back to normal?’

  ‘Bloody hell, Chris. I just – I don’t know. Maybe not. But like Reg said, we have to try, don’t we?’

  Chris gulped, looking up as the women began to walk back toward them. Ben patted him on the shoulder again and the youngster took a deep breath. ‘I’m okay’ he said, as if trying to convince himself. ‘I’ll be okay.’

  Cautiously, Sarah moved in and put her arm gently around Chris’ neck. The boy flinched, looking at her with surprise before gradually turning and placing his hands around her waist. They embraced in silence, resting their heads on each others’ shoulders.

  Ben stepped away from the teenagers and moved nearer to Katie. She was facing away from him, her attention solely on the broken body of the dead mechanic, her hands up in front of her trembling mouth.

  ‘Come on’ Ben said gently, reaching for her hand. ‘We can’t stay here...’

  With heavy hearts the Reillys trudged beyond the shadow of the hayloft and out toward Reg with Chris and Sarah following close behind. Above them the hazy sky had brightened a little but a burning smell was still in the air. As they approached Reg the old man turned to face them, his expression hardening.

  ‘Anything?’ asked Ben, looking around.

  ‘Not that I can see’ the pensioner replied, folding his arms across his chest. ‘Listen’ he said, looking into every face in turn. ‘I know we’re all going through this, but I can’t wait around here any longer. I’ve got to try and get to my sister-in-law’s place before it gets dark. My wife’s there...’

  ‘Okay…’ Ben acknowledged. ‘We understand, Reg.’

  The old man rubbed his brow. ‘Look, why don’t you all come with me? It’s not far, and we can stay there until things get under control. It’ll be a damn sight safer than being stuck out here in the open...’

  Before Ben could answer Sarah grabbed his sleeve and pointed off to the edge of the forest. There, emerging from the tree line, dragging her body across the earth toward them was the dead woman that they had encountered earlier.

  Reg closed his eyes and sighed as he looked down at the ground. ‘Pass me the pitchfork’ he said mournfully.

  ‘No’ Katie said, surprising him. ‘I’ll do it...’

  Ben’s protests died on his lips as he followed his striding wife away from the old farm building and up the slope. The others also followed but at a slower pace, remaining further back.

  ‘She was alive when I first saw her’ muttered Katie as she approached the thing, close enough to stare into its milky eyes. ‘But she died. She definitely died. I saw it happen...’

  Reg watched from twelve feet away as Katie placed both hands on the pitchfork and raised it up like a harpoon; an action that made the teenagers look away in revulsion. The dead woman’s mouth opened just as the prongs thrust into her skull, dramatically cutting short a rabid screech. Wrenching the pitchfork free, Katie gulped as she felt Ben at her shoulder.

  ‘If it happens to me’ she said, in an icy tone devoid of emotion. ‘Don’t leave me like that...’

  ‘Katie, it w-‘

  ‘Promise me, Ben’ she said, handing him the pitchfork.

  Ben Reilly nodded twice, instinctively at first but then more slowly, more deliberately. ‘I promise’ he croaked, looking at the glistening prongs and speaking as if each syllable caused him physical pain.

  Further down the slope a watery-eyed Chris stepped in front of Reg with Sarah shuddering by his side.

  ‘How far away is this place?’ asked the teenage boy.

  ‘Not far, lad. I know roughly where we are. If we go down there we’ll be heading in the right direction.’

  Chris followed the old man’s pointing finger to a worn trail in the mud. It led to yet another beaten track that snaked away under the cover of flanking trees. The teenager gulped, biting his lip. ‘Isn’t that where they went..?’

  ‘Aye’ mumbled Reg. ‘It is.’

  ~ 13 ~

  Halfway along the widening lane the group encountered another of the creatures, a former man who looked to be around Reg’s age. It was scrabbling along in the mud by the side of the trail, legs broken and twisted at unnatural angles as if it had fallen badly or been run over. Inch by inch it crawled forward, snarling.

  The quintet kept a safe distance as they moved slowly past, watching as the thing raised a weak, clawing hand from the ground. A fetid smell hissed from between blackened teeth as it rocked to and fro, all the while trying to grasp for prey that was torturously out of reach.

  ‘Are they really dead..?’ asked Sarah, cowering behind her former boyfriend’s shoulder.

  ‘They are’ said Reg, catching a whiff of the heady stench of decay. He stepped in front of the teenagers, pitchfork in hand, staring into the thing’s white, gunge-filled eyes. ‘Look at it. It can’t talk, it doesn’t blink and it doesn’t breathe. I think the rain brought them back somehow. The bombs killed them, but the rain brought them back.’

  Ben looked down at his own red-stained clothes and a haunting thought resurfaced. Did this fate await him, or any, or all of them..? Was this all part of a terrorist attack, to batter the country with bombs and then unleash the dead to finish what remained?

  ‘Zombies’ said Chris. ‘That’s what they are.’

  Zombies?

  Ben’s mind raced. He had heard the term before; in a documentary about Witch doctors and voodoo in Haiti that he had stumbled upon while channel-hopping late one night. He remembered something about dead bodies being revived as mindless drones, although he could not recall any reference to cannibalism.

  Sarah sniffed. ‘But why are they so...’

  ‘Rotten?’ interjected Reg. ‘Maybe it’s the rain again. Maybe what brings them back makes them - I don’t know - rot away faster...?’

  The thing’s hiss became a gargle as yellow bile spewed from its mouth, making all but Reg turn away in disgust. The old man grimaced and stepped forward, jabbing the prongs of the fork into the top of the misshapen skull, piercing its brain. De-animated, it flopped to the ground amid a pool of dark blood. Reg withdrew the fork, shaking bits of grey flesh from the prongs before wiping the sweat from his brow.

  Ben, deliberately facing away from the creature, gave him a sideways glance. ‘You okay?’ he gulped, watching the old man’s face turn ashen.

  Reg nodded slightly, barely noticeably. Then he turned around, focusing on Sarah and Ben in particular. ‘You all better be ready to do the same, if the time comes.’

  The group were silent as they continued along the battered road, alive to every sound around them. Smelly fluids and traces of dark blood marked the trail, enough to tell them (if they didn’t know already) that they were following the large mass of dead that had gone before. Reg led the group with pitchfork in hand and a determined look on his face, although everyone had noticed that his slight limp had become much more pronounced in only a short period of time.

  Ben’s thoughts drifted again to an image that had been haunting him; that of the little girl in the blue coat and blonde pigtails that he had last seen crying on the station platform in London. He wondered if she was still alive while hating himself for not helping her back then. It was of little comfort that he could never have known what fate was to send their way in the next few hours.

  Seeing him deep in thought Katie gave his hand a squeeze, bringing him back to the present. She nuzzled into his arm as Sarah followed closely behind them, arms folded nervously across her chest. Chris trudged at the rear, constantly looking back over his shoulder to make sure they were not being followed.

  After a while, and after the path had narrowed to about eight feet in width, Reg drew to a halt and leaned against the pitchfork.

  ‘Are you okay?’ asked Ben, aware that it was the second time that he had asked the question in quick succession.

  The old man nodded, taking his glasses off for a moment to wipe his tired eyes. ‘Aye. Just bloody past it, that’s all.’

  ‘Do you want to stop for a while, get your breath back?’

  Reg waved his hand from side to side and put his glasses back on. ‘I’ll be fine. I just need a minute, that’s all.’

  ‘Okay’ said Ben, glancing down at his watch. It was 1.35pm. He looked around and then up at the sky. ‘It’s quiet’ he said.

  ‘I noticed that’ whispered Katie. ‘Really quiet.’

  And it was; the sort of quiet normally reserved for the early hours of morning after a night of heavy snowfall.

  ‘Yeah’ snapped Sarah, ‘because that’s the weirdest thing that’s happened today. Not fucking bombs or red rain or dead people walking arou-!’

  ‘Sarah...’ said Chris, softly but sternly. ‘Calm down.’

  The willowy girl shot him an angry look but almost immediately lowered her head in shame, as if embarrassed by the venom of her own outburst. Katie and Ben exchanged glances and a moment later Sarah looked back up. ‘Sorry’ she mumbled, sheepishly.

  ‘It’s fine’ said Katie, sidling over to the girl. ‘Look - none of us knows what’s going on, do we? We don’t know how much of the country is affected; maybe it’s the whole world. But you and me? Us girls have got to stick together, Sarah.’ Katie touched her arm and she nodded, dredging a twitching smile up from somewhere.

  ‘You want to know why it’s so quiet?’ interjected Reg. ‘Listen. No engines. The rain did something; stopped them working...’

  Ben craned his head, listening to the silence. He honestly couldn’t remember a time where he didn’t hear a car engine or an airplane passing overhead or the thrum of electrics from something or other. Or birdsong. There was no birdsong either.

  Katie gulped. ‘The thing I don’t get is why there was no alert? No four-minute warning? I mean, there was nothing. Nothing at all...’

  ‘Yeah’ said Chris. ‘I thought if someone launched an attack then there was supposed to be time to counter-attack, so there was always a deterrent.’

  ‘Mad’ mumbled Reg, in a tone that made everyone look at him. ‘It was called M.A.D - Mutually Assured Destruction. Least that’s what the bigwigs called it, although that was nuclear...’

  ‘So why no warning then?’ asked Chris.

  Reg shrugged. ‘Look at what we’re dealing with, lad. I used to be in the army but I’ve never seen or heard of anything like this. Whoever’s done this has got resources like we’ve never seen before...’

 

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