“Nah, you’d get used to it after a while.
Want some for your jacket?”
“No, I’m good,” Tommy replied while Marla bit her tongue to stop herself laughing out loud.
“Do you know the Beatles stayed here one time, at our Antrobus Arms Hotel in 1965? They were filming
Help!
– do you know it?”
“I love that song,” said Marla. “You’ve lived here long then?”
“All my life, love. I used to pop to Stonehenge many a time, but not since the grisly men arrived.”
She smiled. “Which way do we go?”
“Ah, the place you want is St. Mary and St. Melor – known as Amesbury Abbey it is. You know, there’s been an abbey here since the year 979? Nah, well, you don’t need to know that. You just drive straight up this road. It runs into the High Street and then Church Street,” Nick explained, looking as if he felt a fresh sense of purpose. Marla presumed he hadn’t had the opportunity to speak to anyone in a while.
Caballero drove forward with the convoy in tow. As they passed a narrow alleyway, Nick
pointed towards it. “There’s loads of zombies down there. It leads to garages and back gardens. Never go there. They like gardens and alleys, they do – dark hiding places,” he added.
“We had a bad encounter near some garages behind a pub,” Marla remembered.
The man nodded. “You see… Have you ever been to Stonehenge, girly?” he asked.
Marla shook her head. “Can’t say I have.”
“You should. It’s beautiful, mystical, but not at night time… anymore. Never go by night,” he said, staring off out the window.
M
arla studied the buildings: everyday houses; some with their curtains drawn and others open. A couple of windows were boarded up, which could be promising, she thought, but the church was first. She wondered how many people had managed to leave this town. “Did you say this place wasn’t evacuated?” she asked, looking at Caballero.
He shook his head. “We were too late here. Anyone who made it out did
so of their own accord.”
“And there was me thinking London was bad,” Tommy stated.
“No, that’s the tragedy of it. People were concentrating too much on the capital. The army and police were focused there.”
“You think the government strategy was wrong?” asked Marla.
Caballero sighed. “Doesn’t matter what I think. We just have to clean up the mess now.”
Marla
glanced at Tommy who shrugged. “Nearly there now,” mumbled Nick.
“Great,” she replied. “Thanks.”
As they entered Church Street and the tower of the building came into view, her heart sank. A crowd of gruesome dead-lookers jammed the road in front of them.
“They know,”
commented Nick.
Tommy looked at him.
“You knew they’d be here?”
“Always. They can smell the people. I could’ve told you if you’d asked.”
Caballero kept the engine running and radioed back: “Undead in the road. Do not leave your vehicles.”
“What’s your plan?”
Marla asked him.
“We take them out. All of them,” he replied
coldly.
“Really?”
“Yes, unless they’re living, we take them out. Who wants to use the machine gun?”
Tommy nodded and switched positions. “I’m on it.”
As the gun fired into the crowd, it began raining blood, or so it seemed to Marla. The dead-lookers juddered on the spot and fell into one another, some catapulted backwards by the force of the shots, their lack of coordination and speed making them easy targets. They collapsed like bloody dominoes until there was a carpet of bodies decorating the front of the grey stone church. Caballero drove the Panther across them and Marla’s attention was caught by Nick clapping loudly. She took a deep breath and then regretted it as the aroma of rotting flesh greeted her senses like a wave, falling around her head and pulling her under.
“You alright, Marla?”
She glanced at Caballero. “Fine, sir. The smell…”
“Yes, it isn’t something you get used to either, I’m afraid,” he stated matter-of-factly as he drove
over the last of the bodies to gain a clear view of the side of the church.
From the pavement the abbey stood
proudly, its brownish, slanted roof stretching upwards. It was a wondrous building. Marla had always admired churches because of their gothic air and shape. Three main arched windows rested above the dark blue door, which was closed. The nave cut across, with windows scattered throughout the grey stone. Shards of sunlight bounced off the panes, highlighting the gravestones sticking out of the overgrown grass here and there, becoming more plentiful towards the side where the cemetery rested. Marla shuddered as she looked. It was full of dead-lookers, as if they had returned to pay their respects to their ancestors.
Caballero reversed the Panther and straightened it up alongside the pavement. The driver of the second Panther had turned it around to face the opposite direction, preparing to take down any
zombies that appeared on the street. The Vector and bus were parked in between the two.
“Is it blasphemy to fire on church property?” asked Marla.
“Are you religious?” asked Caballero.
“No,” she replied. “I’ve always been an atheist, although recent events have made me wonder how anyone can believe in a God that lets something like this happen.”
“So you’ll have no complaints then?” he asked rhetorically as the machine gun emptied its gifts on the dead that crept between the headstones of the once living. Row upon row of the ghastly figures collapsed, decorating the graves and green grass with splatters of deep red and splinters of bone. Marla cringed as the word desecration entered her head and she shook it away. Behind them the other Panther was firing rounds down Church Road. The roar of the guns must have wakened the rest of the creatures, she guessed. Unexpectedly, the door of the abbey opened and a white cloth waved in the air.
“I’m getting out,” said Caballero. “Tommy, stay put. Marla, come with me.”
She nodded and followed the commander out of the vehicle and towards the entrance of the building. Nick remained inside the Panther, clapping and giggling to himself. The guy had lost it, Marla figured, wondering how he had managed to keep himself alive all this time.
“We’re here to take any survivors to a safe facility, run by the government and guarded by the army,”
announced Caballero in a loud voice. “Do you want to come with us?”
The door opened wider and a man stepped out, dressed in black with a white collar. “I am Reverend Matthew,” he stated. “Can you take all of us?”
“How many are you?” asked Caballero.
“One hundred and eighty six.”
Caballero whistled. “That many? Okay, we can take one hundred on the bus, but it will be a squeeze. We will have to come back for the others tomorrow. Can you organise your people? We need to keep guard out here.”
“You are shooting
them?”
“We have no choice.”
The reverend muttered something and nodded. While Tommy and the soldiers in the other Panther continued to pick off any dead that appeared in the street, Sylvia, Robert and Marla entered the church. As they walked in, the dry, stifling heat hit them. Marla coughed slightly and glanced at Sylvia, who looked concerned. The place was full of people sitting huddled together. Young and old, male and female looked up. All at once they rose and a clamour of voices filled the air as the group looked at one another in confusion or excitement; it was difficult to tell.
“Reverend, can you ask them to be silent?” asked Caballero. “We are surrounded by the
undead out there.”
The man nodded and raised his arms in the air. “Please be quiet. It is not safe outside. These people have come here from a safe government facility to find survivors. Today they can take most of
us, not all, but they will come back tomorrow. Please form an orderly queue down the centre of the church. There is no need to panic or rush. Just gather your belongings and make a line. Everyone will be taken – no one will be abandoned here alone, you have my word. You’ll all be saved.”
The congregation fell silent and calmly did as Matthew instructed. Marla smiled, amazed by his power to control a difficult situation. Moving alongside him, she
whispered, “How did you do that?”
He smiled back and brought his hands together in front of him. “We have been united in prayer here for many years. I know most of my flock. Some are strangers, but I welcomed them. All are equal in God’s eyes. They trust me.”
When the people were assembled, Sylvia and Marla began to lead them outside to the waiting double-decker bus. One by one, they climbed inside and found a seat. Marla wondered when they had last bathed or eaten a proper meal. She imagined the facilities inside the church to be basic. How many times had they been forced to brave the outside world to find food? They would have to do it no more.
“Thanks,
Miss,” said a small, fair-haired boy clinging on to his mother’s hand.
Marla grinned at him. “You’re welcome,” she replied, watching as his parent helped him with the step.
“Makes it all worthwhile, no?” asked Sylvia.
“Sure does. I only wish we could take all of them today.”
Sylvia smiled. “They’ve been safe there all this time. It will only be one more night and I guess one of us can stay with them – depends who volunteers. If no one does, Caballero will probably do it.”
“Really?”
“That’s the type of man he is.”
“A good one then,” Marla
surmised as she watched the commander speaking to Matthew by the entrance to the church. She jumped slightly as the machine gun launched a fresh spray of gunfire.
“That’s it,” Robert announced as he strode out of the building and up to the two girls.”
Marla frowned. “No, he said there were one hundred and eighty six people altogether. The bus can take a hundred, but I only counted seventy-seven.”
“Me, too,” Sylvia
agreed. “Let’s check with the Reverend.”
Robert
gestured to Martinez, who was driving the bus, to close the doors and then he followed the two women into the church.
“We’re a few short,” Sylvia announced to Caballero.
Matthew nodded. “Yes, most of my congregation were in here and the others are in the crypt. How many spaces are left?”
“Twenty-three,” said
Marla, “exactly.”
“Alright, so I think I should ask for women and children to g
o first,” he replied. “Come, it is this way to the crypt.”
Robert closed the church doors while Caballero strode
after the Reverend, followed by Sylvia and Marla. Matthew stopped in front of a heavy, wooden door, rounded at the top. Lifting the metal bolt, he turned the handle and pushed. It yawned open with a slight creak to reveal a series of light stone steps. He led the way down to yet another door and, turning the handle, he walked inside.
Caballero
stretched out his arm to take the full weight of the door and held it open for Marla. “Chilly down here,” he remarked, stepping into the dimly lit crypt. Matthew was crossing the room to where the remainder of his flock were seated. Some were very young, judging by the size of them, thought Marla, as she hurried to catch up with the commander.
“Oh my God,” he gasped, stopping suddenly
.
“What’s wrong?” asked Matthew, turning around. “Can you take them?”
Marla felt her skin ripple as if beneath an icy touch when she took in the rows of heads that were beginning to rise; the expressionless faces turning to gaze upon them, one by one. She recognised the now familiar expression of hunger; the all-consuming need to devour, which was the only emotion experienced by the dead. “Caballero?” she muttered.
“We cannot take them,” he told
the Reverend, “and we should leave
now
.”
“But they are all cr
eatures of God,” Matthew replied, looking perplexed. “How can we leave them here to perish?”
“They are already dead.”
The Reverend shook his head and swept his hand up. “They live, move and breathe, just like us. They are only sick.”
“No,” Sylvia argued. “They are dead. They have the virus. Has anyone else been bitten?”
Matthew nodded. “Some, but we bandaged them.”
“Are they on the bus?” asked Caballero.
The man nodded.
“Jesus,” breathed Marla. “I’ll go warn the others.”
She spun on her heels and then stopped short as a scream escaped her lips. Behind them was a recess they had not been aware of when entering the crypt. It was crammed full of dead-lookers and they had already risen; their wizened features frozen like Halloween masks as they drifted across the stone ground.
Young and old.
Marla gazed at the children and felt a deep sorrow flood over her. It kept her rooted to the spot for too many seconds until she was aware of Sylvia grabbing her arm and trying to drag her towards the exit. Robert lunged for the door and tugged it open.