Authors: Justin Gowland
I ask “Rees, you think everything you need is in here?”
“I am thinking that some of those fence panels will do, but we have a problem. We can’t get them through that hole in the fence and it is too high to push them over, so getting them out is going to be a pain in the arse.”
“If we made the hole bigger then we would be able to get them through, but the problem we have with that is if we need to do this again the Reapers have an easier chance of getting at us. There seems to be a big gate back here in the corner for deliveries. Lets try and find a way to open it.”
We walked across the yard and were about halfway there when Rees suddenly let out a howl “What the fuck! The end of the world and I step in dog shit. Ghost you filthy bloody animal.”
I started laughing and Ghost crept out from behind a pile of slate and sat next to me with his tongue hanging out and his breath huffing in and out, like he was laughing. Which of course sets me off even more. Rees spun round and glared at us both, but because he was standing on one leg waving the other around like a loon. I was bent over at the waist, laughing so hard my side started to hurt and I had to lean against a display shed r I would have been on the floor. After a few more minutes and curses from Rees, I had managed to calm myself enough to stand.
Walking over to the gate I saw that it was a large sliding gate on rollers, it was fastened at one end with a large padlock and one of the thickest chains I have seen. We weren’t going to be able to cut through that with bolt cutters, so we had to find the key.
“Rees, we are going to have to go inside and find the key if we are going to use this gate.” I said.
“Ok, how did you and Becky get in the last time?”
“There is a door back near to where we came in, but with your fat arse, I don’t think we are going to be able to get you in through it.”
“What is it with my arse? Are you starting to bat for the other side? You know if you are that would give me a clear shot at Maddie.” He replied with a sly smile.
“Yeah, like she would want someone with a brain the size of a walnut. Come on funny boy lets see if we can get the door forced open.”
We walked over to the door and had a look, I was right there was no way that we were going to get Rees through that hole.
“Rees mate do me a favor stand away a little, you smell like dog shit!” I said giggling.
“Walker you know, don’t quit your day job to become a comedian cause you are crap mate.” He said over his shoulder as he walked to the door and tried to pull the two apart.
I could hear the grinding sound of the doors as they slowly pushed to the sides. Not for the first time I am amazed at Rees and the strength he has. He would frighten any new members to our squad when we were in the Army and from the looks of him I would think he had got bigger with age rather than lose the bulk.
After about ten minutes of him pushing and grunting (heh, pushing and grunting lol. Yeah childish, but what you gonna do?) he had managed to open a gap wide enough for him to turn sideways and squeeze through. Ghost slipped in behind him and I followed and just happened to look down. There on the floor leading away from the broken pane me and Becky had used to get in and out, was a small trail of the blackish blood that the Reapers had.
Tapping on Rees’s shoulder, I pointed down at the trail of blood and we both raised the rifles and started looking round. I pointed at myself then at the Customer Service desk, then at him, I lifted two fingers and indicated an arc of aim. He nodded and went to one knee and lifted his rifle to his shoulder and stared covering the area.
I climbed over the desk and started to look for anything that looked like it might be the key to the gate. Looking under the desktop there wasn’t anything to indicate where the key could be. Behind the desk was a door leading to a small office, lifting my rifle to my shoulder I approached the door and stood to one side a pushed it gently. It swung partly open and Ghost nudged my leg and slipped through the gap. Pushing the door open more I went inside and my nose was assaulted with the smell of meat that had gone off and left to rot.
Sat inside the small office behind a desk in a large office chair was a body. He must have been here since the first day, his skin had started to split from the build up of the gases that come with a decaying body. From the looks of things he had taken his life with a box cutter, he had slit his wrists and had done it by slicing up his arms and bleed out onto the office floor. There was a large pool of dried blood, in which the chair was sat. There was a filing cabinet in the corner and the thing that caught my eye was a small box on the wall above it. I edged round the room to the box, I saw that it needs a key. Bloody hell, why does everything need a key, and I knew that I was going to have to search the corpse to find it.
Walking round the edge of the desk, I pushed the chair back from the desk with my foot, turning it so the body was facing me. Standing looking at the body I could see that he had probably either shit or pissed himself as he died. Mind you, looking at the size and shape of the stain his pants he probably did both.
Right might as well get this over and done with. I bent down and patted the trousers around the pockets and didn’t feel anything that could have been a set of keys. Well, that was a relief, I don’t have to go sticking my hands in his pockets. Turning the chair round so I could check his back pockets, I see a one of those retractable key ring things hooked onto his belt. (score.) Snatching it off his belt, I went through the keys and found one that said gate on a tag, my luck just got even better. (of course that never lasts for me.)
A shot rings out from the store’s main floor, then Rees bellows “Walker, targets out here about twelve and they are heading straight for us.”
I rushed out the room and took shelter behind the Customer Service desk and looked out over the area in front. I saw four on the stairs leading to the landing where Becky and I had stayed when I first got injured. Then I saw a few in the aisles, but from where I was I could only see a few.
“Rees, I am going to take the ones that are on the stairs. You will have a better view of the ones in aisles.”
“Ah! So you get the easy ones and get the ones that are dancing among the aisles, are you sure you can hit them?”
“Hah funny, just you can see them better because you’re a frikken giant you twat.” And with that said I fired my first shot which took the Reaper between the eyes, it was comical that it crossed them before falling back. By the time the first echo started to fade, we fired as one and I took another in the throat, nearly the same as outside. The two remaining Reapers turned and leaped from the stairs, one on the right took my next round in the groin and went down howling. (hey, I didn’t aim for its balls I just didn’t expect it to jump so high. But I have to admit it made me smile.)
The last had moved further up the steps away from the others and looked like it was turning away from us when my round entered just where the head met it’s neck, and it fell like a puppet with its strings cut. Rees was shouting for some help and I turned to see the other Reapers jumping up on top of the shelving and moving toward us. We kept firing and all of a sudden they just weren’t there, I saw a flash of gray behind a large stand promoting a type of paint then nothing.
“Rees, what the fuck man did you show them your cock mate?” I asked.
“Nah, if I had done that they would have all ran. I got about five or six, before they bugged out what about you?”
“I know I got the four on the stairs, but out of the others I don’t know they were moving too quickly to be sure.”
“Let’s have a little look round. Did you manage to get your hands on the key?”
Holding up the key, I moved off with Ghost on my heels to check my side of the store and Rees shouldered his rifle and moved off to the left. Every aisle, I looked down I never saw a Reaper anywhere, getting to the back of the store I circled round to the center and met up with Rees to check the middle of the store. Coming down the middle of the store we came across one of the Reapers that Rees had shot. It was lying slumped against a shelf of wallpaper. Rees had managed to place his shot where its nose was, I say was because its nose was just a concave hole through into its brain.
Black blood was leaking down out of the hole and down over the lips and chin to drip to the floor. As we stood looking down at it, I noticed a smell and was having a little bit of a problem trying to place it.
“Rees, have a sniff will you there is something there I can’t put my finger on.”
“I’m not smelling any of your farts.” He said
“Stop being a tit. The Reaper smells of something and I can’t figure what it is. I am sure we have smelt it before, just can’t remember where.”
Leaning forward so that he could get a better smell. (must be hard being so high up in the fucking air.) Standing up straight, his face takes on a puzzled look.
“You’re right, I have smelt that somewhere! Where the fuck have I smelt that?”
“It’ll come to us. Where do you think the Reapers have gone?” I asked
“Oh, them? They circled round us whilst we have been here and fucked off out the door we came in, whilst we were stood here smelling mister gray shite.”
I just walked away grumbling and shaking my head, whilst Ghost padded up to the Reaper and took a piss on its chest.
Chapter Three
Getting back to the yard we went to the Land Rover and saw two Reapers stood in the car park watching us. I raised my rifle and they bolted into the bushes and out of sight. Now that was interesting, every time up until now they would attack us straight away. (like I said earlier, what the fuck?) Rees just shrugged his large shoulders and started to climb into the Land Rover.
“Er…. Rees mate!” I asked.
“Yup?”
“What you doing? Don’t you think that we should make sure the key for the gate fits first?”
“Ah, now you see why you were the corporal and I was the private. That and the fact there is no way I am letting you drive.” He said with a wink.
Now I hadn’t thought about driving but it was appealing idea. But the big git was in the driver’s seat starting the engine. He was looking in the rearview mirror and smiled at me, so being the better man I flipped him off and went to try the key in the gate.
Opening the gate was a simple matter of undoing the padlock, removing the chain and pushing the gate back on its wheels, but I waited until Rees had brought the Land Rover round before doing that. He managed to back the Land Rover into the yard and I closed the gate once it was in. I went and got a piece of the fence panelling and placed it over the hole in the wire fence that we came in through, just so that we would have a little warning if anything tried to get in that way.
Rees climbed out the Land Rover and moved round the yard picking up the things that we needed to make the shutters for the cottage. We placed the long boards and two by four posts on the roof rack of the Land Rover. We went back inside the store and picked up nails,screws, other fixings and the tools we would need, we put them in a trolley and took them out and put them in the back of the car. Rees climbed into the driver’s seat and I opened the door for Ghost to get in then climbed in myself. (to be honest, I was not too bothered about driving today.)
Rees looked over at me and said “Well?”
Looking back at him, puzzled “What?”
“Right I know you got injured recently, but it had nothing to do with your nut, mate! Do you think we could drive through that gate like?”
“Ahh, now I do sort of look a right dick, don’t I.”
“Well a dick might be a bit strong. A fucking great idiot, maybe.” He said laughing.
I climbed out the Land Rover saying “Rees, mate, I mean this from the bottom of my heart ‘Shut the fuck up!’.” I said smiling back at him.
He just sat laughing in the Land Rover, while I opened the gate, then waited until he had driven through and followed him out and closed the gate after us. Climbing back into the passenger seat and leaned back in the seat. Before we moved off Rees looked over at me and said “Honestly, mate, on a serious note, we could really do with better rifles than these crappy two two’s. Seeing as we are out and about do you think we should get something better?”
“We have the shotguns back at the cottage. I mean, if we were in America we would have a nice range of weapons to loot from. But being in the UK we are a limited dude. Well, unless you want to try and break into an Army barracks and I am not mad.”
“Ah, now I might have a way to get some SA80’s without breaking into any Army barracks, how about a TA barracks?” (ah, now I know the reason why he wanted to get out this morning the sly fucker.)
“I know there are some round here, but not sure where they are. Only because I never wanted to join them after I left the Army.” I replied.
“Yeah, well, that’s where I come in, I was training some TA units up here like I said last night. The last unit I did some training with was up at Chester-Le-Street, it had a small armory with a few SA80’s for their troops. Like I said, seeing as we are out and about how about we do a small raid for the weapons?”