The mutilated man nodded and gave her a look of gratitude. He then held the bottle, dripping with spit, out for Tom to take.
“You keep,” Tom told him with an expression of disgust.
“If you’re that bothered about them,” Chuck said to Muz out on the balcony. “I think we should just stuff them in the Jankel, drive them to the cordon and throw them out. Let the top brass decide what to do with them.”
“You know they’ll just be shot without whoever’s in charge out there being told,” Muz responded.
Chuck shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. They’re never going to be right again, never going to be human again. Even that one that’
s recovered from its injuries. It moves and behaves more like an animal than a person now.”
“But they could hold the clues to a…”
“They’re not cured,” Chuck cut him off. “They’re not going to give us a cure. Be realistic. The only thing they could possibly offer us is a way of extending the suffering of those infected.”
Muz couldn’t think of anything to say to that and so just stood in silence while Chuck finished his fag. The big man flicked what remained of the butt out into the air. He coughed up a large bloody brown lump of mucus and spat it out after the fag.
“You coming in?” he said to Muz.
The copper nodded and they went inside.
“Try this. Sorry it’s not up to much,” Margaret said to the two men on the sofa, offering them a bowl each. “It’s left-overs from earlier.”
“Mashed potato with chopped up hot dogs mixed in
,” Jay said, full of pride for his concoction.
“As I said, our rations are somewhat limited,” Margaret further apologised.
The newcomers took the bowls from her and looked down at the contents with disdain. Raj lifted the bowl to his nose, took a tentative sniff and then placed it back in his lap, looking up at Margaret. The other man picked out one of the little circles of sausage section from the mash. Squeezing it in his fingers so it fell apart, in affect chewing with his hands, he then popped the mince into his neck hole. Though he scowled in disgust, he began to dig around in the mash for another piece and repeat the process.
“I guess dey ain’t dat hungry,” Jay said, feeling a little wounded.
“Maybe they ate their fill of a kill just before we found them,” Chuck said.
“Or is maybe they can only eat raw meat now,” Tom suggested.
Margaret headed back into the kitchen and opened the fridge. It was pretty bare. Taking out a pack of sausages and some burgers, she presented them to the guests.
The disfigured man almost leapt out of his seat
, as he snatched the raw burgers on the plate from her hand. Tearing off tiny pieces, so as not to choke, he pushed the meat into his hole, eyes rolling up with pleasure.
Even R
aj showed a modicum of emotion at the sight of the food. His eyes widened and he gratefully took the sausages, devouring the chain of fatty links greedily.
“Aw cuz, dat is proper disgustin’,” Jay said.
“Well, that’s the last of our meat,” Margaret announced. “I don’t know what we can feed them from now on.”
“And what is Digby going to eat?” Amy asked.
“Forget the dog. What am I going to eat?” Chuck wanted to know.
“You aren’t going to starve anytime soon,” Muz told him. He felt that, as Carl was no longer with them, someone had to fill his boots.
“There’s other stuff that we can eat,” Margaret reassured the big man with the big appetite.
“
I’ve seen the stock pile,” Chuck told her. “We’re almost out of everything.”
“We haven’t even touched any of the cans of macaroni cheese or prunes.”
“No, and they won’t be getting touched either,” Chuck said moodily. “All they’re good for is throwing at zombie heads.”
“Judging by their rapid tissue regeneration, these men are going to need a lot of food,” Amy said. “Particularly the one who is still badly injured.”
The room went silent for a moment, as they all contemplated the situation.
“We’re going to have to do another ration run then,” Chuck declared.
“But we’ve checked every flat in the block,” Muz told him. “There’s nothing left.”
“We’re just going to have to raid another block,” Chuck replied, though he hated the idea himself. “We knew it was going to come to that eventually.”
Everyone had known that, as they had watched their food stores steadily deplete over the passing days, but until now, no one had wanted to bring it up. As far as bad ideas went, it was right up there with the best of them. It was impossible to guess how many afflicted people might be lurking in the other blocks.
“
What choice do we have?” Chuck asked when no one responded.
“There is a better option,” Muz told him.
“I’ve been thinking about it. Over past the far side of the estate, at Cannon Corner, where the A5 meets Spur Road, there’s a petrol station mini-market.”
“Two problems with that,” Chuck responded, dismissing it instantly. “It’s probably been looted
already, like all the other shops, and I’m guessing it’s right on top of the cordon. We could be shot.”
“Not if we take the Jankel through the estate,” Muz explained. “We wouldn’t come into the line of sight of the west cordon until we were on top of the petrol station. We could back the truck right up to the shop doors. Compared to searching another block, it would be minimal risk.”
Chuck’s eyes were filled with suspicion as he looked at the copper. Was this just a ruse to get close to the cordon and attempt to break through again, he wondered.
“Sounds good,” Jay said.
Chuck glared at him.
“There’s also a Mackie D’
s next door,” Muz added.
“Dat’s right,” Jay said excitedly. “Sweet.”
“It’ll have stocks of raw burger meat in the freezers for these fellas,” Muz continued to argue his point. “The noise we might cause breaking into the mini-market and the Mackie D’s would be preferable to the extended period of noise of kicking in countless flat doors for a smaller reward.”
“How far?” Tom asked.
“No more than a minute’s drive,” Muz told him.
“Okay, okay,” Chuck caved. “You’ve made your point.
”
“But who is stay here?” Tom asked. “Zombies cannot go and should not stay alone.”
“He’s right,” Chuck said. “We can’t drag those things along with us. We don’t know how they might react in an adverse situation. I don’t want to be having to keep one eye on them while I’m fighting off other crazies.”
“Okay,” Muz said. “So, who stays behind with Ninja Man and Silent Sam?”
“I’ll stay here with them. They’re my patients now,” Amy said.
It was true that she felt the need to look after the men
, but if the full truth be known, the main reason for her volunteering was down to her beginning to develop an unnerving level of agoraphobia.
“Fine but you can’t stay alone. You
’ll need a bit of muscle if they do kick off,” Muz told her.
“So, you admit you don’t trust them,” Chuck said with a hint of triumph.
“I’m just been cautious,” the copper told him. “Tom, would you mind staying here with her?”
Tom scowled.
“But I am want to go.”
Out of all the survivors, he was the only one who had been looking forward to
the prospect of going out and smashing some zombie heads. It wasn’t that he was normally a violent man; he just needed some serious exercise to escape his own thoughts. He hated the idea of something happening to Amy though.
“Please,” Muz begged.
“Okay, I stay with little nurse,” Tom said reluctantly.
“
Margaret,” Muz said. “I think you should stay here too.”
“And would that be based on my age or my gender,” the woman retorted defiantly. “I’m going.”
“But...,” Muz began.
“Safety in num
bers,” Margaret said over him.
The truth was that she would rather go outside, with the safety of the Jankel between her and any potential attackers, than remain in the flat with these two men whom they knew nothing about
. She still wasn’t sure she could trust them.
“She is a good fighter,” Chuck admitted
, though he felt strange saying it.
“Okay,” Muz conceded.
“If Margaret’s going, I’m going,” Jay stated.
“How terribly sweet of you,” the elderly woman said, rubbing his stubbly hair affectionately.
“Okay, it’s decided,” Muz said. “We’ll wait until after dark then head out.”
“Make sure to bring plenty vodka,” Tom told him.
Chapter 14
Happy Larry
“Don’t do anything stupid while we’re gone,” Chuck warned Amy sternly, as he laced up his boots
in the darkness of the flat.
“Like what?” Amy asked, annoyed at being spoken to like that.
“Like trying to take those two to the cordon,” he clarified, nodding over at the two strange men on the sofa.
“Of course I won’t,” Amy said.
“You know what would happen to you, don’t you?” Chuck asked her.
“Of course I do.”
Chuck gave the woman his most authoritative stare. He wasn’t sure she was taking him seriously. “I just don’t want you getting yourself killed. You do understand that, don’t you?”
Amy gave him a steely look. “Of course I do.”
Chuck grumbled and looked down at the bow he was making. Amy grinned.
Margaret, lacking the upper body strength for concussive weapons to do much good in her hands, still preferred blades. In the kitchen, she took the two largest knives from the draw and slid them down behind her belt. Her heart was beginning to race a little at the thought of going back outside but she refused to let it show.
Night had long since drawn in and they had put off what they needed to do long enough.
“Okay, let’s go,” Chuck said decisively, heading for the door.
Jay slapped the end of his bat against his palm a couple of times and followed Margaret, as the woman went out after Chuck.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be back before you know it,” Muz said to Amy, in response to her apprehensive expression.
“Good luck,” Tom said, still wishing he was going with them.
The four of them headed down the stairs. Their collective silence w
asn’t just due to the tension. They were listening out for any sounds that might be their only clue that someone had managed to gain entry to the tower and was waiting for them around the next turn in the stairwell.
In the ground floor foyer, they saw the barricade still in place against the doors.
As quietly as they could, they dragged the furniture aside and stepped out into the night. It was extremely dark outside, despite the presence of the street lights. The group had to tell themselves that as unnerving as the darkness was, the cannibals wandering around out here had to be able to see less than they could.
They scurried up to the Jankel and climbed in as fast as they could. Muz had made sure that he had kept the key on him at all times, day and night, and so jumped into the driver’s seat. Chuck claimed shotgun, while Margaret and Jay sat themselves in the rear.
“Make sure the back doors and those sliding windows are shut tight and locked,” Muz called back over his shoulder, as he started up the engine. “We don’t need any small animals managing to get in.”
Jay double checked, rattling all the handles. “We’re good,” he said.
“And everybody keep your eyes peeled for anything bigger than a man,” the copper added. He didn’t want to go through again what he had with that police horse.
“And don’t forget dat man-eatin’ bogey fing dat ate Carl,” Jay reminded him.
Muz really hoped they didn’t bump into that blob and scowled over his shoulder at Jay for bringing it to his mind. Were those tentacles powerful enough to smash through the toughened glass of the Jankel’s windows, he wondered. Would squashing it under the wheels of the truck kill it? Hopefully, the weird snot monster was long gone and it wouldn’t come to that.
“Okay, let’s just get going,” Chuck said. Muz’s
obvious apprehension was beginning to get on his own nerves.
Muz edged the vehicle forward off the grass, taking care not to spin the wheel
s in the soft dirt.
The night was particularly cold and a film of frost had already settled on all the cars. Those few afflicted people they came across seemed incapable of any movement, literally frozen solid where they stood. As the Jankel passed them by, the only animation they could muster was a
slight frustrated juddering. Quiet cracked moans could be heard emerging from their frost bitten larynxes.
Muz was startled to hear a metallic rattling nearby but tried to calm himself when he saw it
s source. One of the rotting victims had someone got one side of his face frozen to a car bonnet. As his frozen muscles shuddered in their best effort to pull him free, the cover of the engine compartment beat against the surrounding bodywork. The man must have collapsed onto the car in exhaustion brought on by malnutrition, Muz guessed.
“See, there’s nothing to worry about,” Chuck told the others. “The dead won’t be putting up much of a fight tonight.”
The walking corpses stunk worse now than they ever had, Chuck decided. The fetid stench of their rotting mingled with the putrid odour of eight days’ worth of faeces that was crusted down the backs of their legs.
Muz wove his way through the estate, until he reached the far end, passing through a square arch that ran through a newish more affluent-looking block. How much had people paid to live in the flats in that building, Muz wondered. How many of those people had moved in without even
being aware of the scum they would be living right next door to?
Appearing out the other side of the block, the
Jankel joined Spur Road and turned left towards Canons Corner roundabout. Muz drove them along the road for no more than twenty metres then turned left again into the forecourt of the petrol station. They could see the roundabout from here, and just visible in the darkness, were several tall concrete barriers and coils of razor wire on its far exit. They marked this section of the western cordon.
There had clearly been some kind of stand-off on the forecourt. Cars had been lined up to form a wall of cover, protecting their owners from the rifle fire of the soldiers on th
e far side of the A5. It had ended badly for the civilians though. Car bodies didn’t stop rifle bullets, as the holes riddling their chassis and the many prostrate bodies lying behind them bore testament to.
Muz backed the rear doors of the truck up to entrance of the petrol station, accidentally crunching the wheels over more than one corpse as he did so. He tried to ignore the brilliant little red dots of light beginning to dance around on the bonnet and windscreen.
“Let’s get in there and get this done,” Muz said, hurriedly clambering between the two front seats, to get to the rear away from those laser sights.
As Jay pushed open the doors, they saw that someone had, as they had expected, beat them to the punch. A hole in the shattered lower glass panel of one of the twin doors showed
the previous looters’ point of entry.
“Be careful, there could still be someone in there,” Chuck warned Jay, as the boy squatted down and climbed through the hole in the glass.
Inside, to their relief, there was still plenty of food for the taking. Most of it was lying on the floor between the short aisles of shelves. It looked like the place had been ransacked by a few youths, out for a good time more than anything else.
Muz jumped over the service counter and warily opened the door to a back room. The space, little more than a large cupboard, was piled up to the ceiling with boxes. Reading the writing printed on the cardboard, he determined which
the best parcels to take were and passed them out onto the counter top.
“Take these,” he told the others, who were already rapidly gathering up the spilled food and stuffing it into carrier bags.
While Margaret and Chuck were both going for the more nutritious items of tinned food and the ready meals in the fridges, Jay was paying attention only to the packets of crisps, family-sized bottles of fizzy drinks and the chocolate bar display. When Muz had finished passing out all the boxes of worth and the others had filled a plentiful supply of carrier bags, he helped them form a chain, passing the loot through the shattered door and into the truck.
“This lot is gonna last us for time, bruv,” Jay said happily. “I’m gonna make myself sick tonight
, innit.”
“Yes,” Margaret agreed
, “this was a splendid idea, Mustafa.”
With the back of the Jankel brimming with boxes and bags, they all climbed back inside, Muz again making them
double-check all the locks.
“Let’s just go back to the block,” Chuck said.
Muz was tempted for a moment. They had enough supplies now to last them weeks, but nothing in the way of raw meat.
“We still need to get food for the newbies,” Muz replied.
“Forget them,” Chuck told him. “We should quit while we’re ahead.”
Muz paused, indecisive. “What do you two think?” he asked of those in the back.
“Amy does think that those men are important,” Margaret mused.
“Yeah,” Jay added
, “we should get dem somefink.”
“Mackie
D’s it is then,” Muz said and began to manoeuvre around the line of cars.
The sounds of rustling and crunching from in the back told him that Jay was already tucking into some of the crisps.
“Don’t eat that rubbish,” Margaret rebuked him, snatching the huge bag of nacho Dorritos from his hands. “You need real food inside you.”
Muz
drove them out of the forecourt onto the A5, turning left. Again, the red laser dots crawled all over the vehicle, as the soldiers on the now very nearby roofs waited for the slightest reason to justify opening fire.
“I don’t like this one bit,” Chuck said, his entire body tense
, as a red light jostled around on his chest. He knew all too well how trigger happy Marines could be.
Muz however took an immediate left again, off the road and into the car park of the fast food restaurant. He continued to drive, following the lane of the drive-thru to the rear of the building, until they were obscured from the snipers’ lines of sight.
It was particularly dark back there in the rear car park, off the road and hidden from the street lights, so they waited a minute before daring to emerge from the truck. They scrutinised the darkness, listening intently. Nothing. There were no signs that anything was moving around out there, so they reluctantly opened the doors and stepped out.
Though the fast food restaurant on the whole appeared locked up tight, the drive-thru pick-up window was ajar. Standing beside it was a life-sized cardboard cut-out of a clow
n. It was Happy Larry, the Mackie D’s mascot. ‘Larry is now available for kids’ parties,’ the writing above Larry’s head said.
The clown character had been thought up by the company’s advertising committee in order to attract children. The directors knew that getting kids hooked at an early age on the highly addictive chemicals
, hidden in the stuff they peddled as food, meant guaranteed customers for years to come.
Muz stepped up and examined the window. There was no sign that anyone had forced entry.
It had probably just been open at the time this area had become subject to the expanding quarantine. He was the first to climb through, almost knocking over a broom that had been propped up against the service counter. As the long handle slid along the edge of the ledge, he managed to catch it before it clattered to the floor. His breath caught too for a moment in his throat, as he perched precariously balanced on the counter top. If there was anyone inside the building, the last thing he wanted to do was announce their entrance so dramatically.
Margaret and Jay clambered through after him. Chuck was the last and, with the aperture being quite thin, he found squeezing through a struggle. The other three grabbed him by the arms and helped him force the girth of his gut through the gap. As they were doing so, the constriction caused the big man to start coughing. Chuck did his best to fight off the wet rasping barking fit, fearing his noise might alert someone to their presence.
“I’m okay,” he said, as he finally slid through and managed to take control of himself.
With the four of them pressed tightly into the tiny room that was barely bigger than a cupboard, they could hardly move. Muz pressed himself between Jay and Chuck and tried to open the service hatch on the wall behind them. It was too small for any of them to climb through but they would at least be able to see whether anyone was waiting for them in the kitchen. The hatch wouldn’t budge though, probably locked in place from the other side.
Margaret reached around to her back and worked the handle of the door she was pushed against. Managing to crack it open, the slender woman slid through. This created enough room in the cramped confines for the door to open further and the others followed her.
They now found themselves stood midway along a short corridor with a couple of other doors along its length and one at either end. Margaret opened a door
, and as luck would have it, found that it led to the stock area with an adjoining freezer room.
As quietly bu
t as quickly as they could, they set about passing boxes of frozen burgers along the chain they made through the corridor and the little service room, with Chuck at the end, tossing them through the window into the back of the truck.
“What about de chicken burgers?” Jay asked. “Will dem zombies eat chicken?”