“No time to get to the cab,” Smith said. “We’ll have to hop in the back bed.”
Lowie revved the engine and I knew he was debating whether to simply take off in the truck and leave us to the mercy of the undead swarm. The brake lights flashed then cut out. Lowie had his foot on the gas and was probably about to clunk the transmission into drive.
We were seconds away from being left alone in the dark amongst countless attacking zombies.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Smith and I barged our way through the enclosing crowd of undead lurching from the darkness. We were forced to open fire on a couple of ghouls who came too close and reached out for us with grasping hands. We both reached the back of the truck’s bed at the same time and turned to haul ourselves backwards over the pickup’s high sides. Smith kicked out at a female zombie who grabbed his ankle and the ghoul tumbled back into a couple of her cohorts behind her.
I banged the side of the truck and Lowie understood the message. He accelerated away at a fast rate of knots, slamming into the undead crowd swarming around the cab. Smith and I heard disapproving grunts from the guys beneath the tarp as we scrabbled into the center of the flat bed.
Lowie almost lost control of the vehicle as he snaked to the left and picked up a dirt track leading back to the village. Smith and I clung on and any of the undead who tried to grab hold of the truck were shaken off during Lowie’s fishtailing maneuver.
“Shit, that was too fucking close,” Smith gasped, pulling out his cigarette pack.
He offered me a smoke and I gratefully took one.
“You still have that lighter, right?” he asked.
I nodded, reaching into my pocket. I lit my smoke and handed him the lighter. Every cigarette I smoked, I wondered if it was my last.
Lowie slowed the truck to a halt a few hundred yards down the dirt track and leaned out of the cab window.
“You two can get back inside the front now, eh? We are far enough away from the house.”
“Okay, Lowie,” Smith said.
Smith and I clambered out from the truck bed and hurried around to the cab. We slid across the seats back in our previous formation, with me beside the passenger door.
“Jesus, I thought you two were gonners back there,” Lowie sighed.
“We’ve been in tighter spots,” Smith said, with a whole bucket load of false bravado.
Lowie rumbled the truck forward and took a right turn at a fork in the road so we skirted around the village. Illuminated slightly by the moonlight, I saw the white domed houses to our left and they looked as though they were eerily rising out of the ground like huge mushrooms erupting through the soil.
“Okay, Lowie, drive up towards the castle but remember to stop at a reasonable distance at a point where the lookouts can’t see us,” Smith instructed. “The last thing we need right now is to be taking on incoming fire while that bunch of zombies outside the castle walls comes charging after us.”
Lowie nodded. “I know a spot that will be perfect.”
“Let’s do it,” Smith said.
We jolted around inside the cab as Lowie drove the pickup truck slowly up the inclining dirt track. The engine whined noisily and I was slightly concerned that everybody on the whole island, living or dead could hear us. Lowie kept the vehicle’s lights on the lowest brightness so he could just about see where he was going but the headlamps wouldn’t shine too brightly across the landscape.
Lowie slowed the truck and came to a stop behind a clump of tall trees to the left. The dirt track snaked upwards and to our right. Lowie cut the engine and the sound of chirruping insects was the only audible noise around us. No moaning zombies and no rapid gunfire. So far, so good.
“This is the spot,” Lowie confirmed, turning off the truck’s lights. Moonlight peeped through the cluster of trees outside.
“Okay, you and the boys hang tight here but don’t go drifting away anyplace,” Smith said. “We may be hightailing it right back here and need to take off at short notice. Got me?”
Lowie nodded. “Sure,” he muttered.
Smith turned to me. “Okay, kid, let’s go.”
“I’m coming with you?” I asked, the surprise evident by my high pitched tone.
“U-huh, what did you think you’d be doing?”
“Okay,” I said, opening the door and wondering what plans Smith had in store for me.
“Keep following the track and it will lead you right up to the castle gates,” Lowie explained. “But be careful. I’ve seen them shining down searchlights around the walls sometimes.”
“Right,” Smith muttered. “We’ll bear that in mind.”
Smith and I exited the vehicle and left Lowie slumped inside the cab. Muted voices came from under the tarpaulin in the back bed.
“We’re going on our bombing run, guys,” Smith called out. “Hang in there until we get back, okay?”
More muffled responses came but the banter didn’t sound exactly favorable. Smith shrugged and ushered me to the edge of the dirt track. We started slowly trekking up the incline, keeping to the long grass verge at the side of the track. I followed behind Smith, treading in the indentations he’d made in the long grass to minimize the sound.
The moonlight cast long shadows across the track as we moved silently towards the large castle looming out of the darkness above us. To the left, I saw the dark cliffs that we’d walked across the previous day. The rocky crag looked like a huge black bulk blotting out the landscape beyond.
Smith stopped still and put his arm out straight, signaling for me also to cease moving. We both inched into the dense shadows, further onto the grass verge to our left and waited. A lone figure wearing a torn, light colored shirt stumbled like a drunken man across the track, around twenty yards up the incline. The figure stopped for a moment, glanced down in our direction and let out a long, low moan. I thought for one second the guy was going to stagger towards us but he turned back towards his original direction and headed into a patch of woodland on the right side of the track.
We waited a few seconds until the lone figure was definitely out of range before we continued onward up the track.
The ground leveled off around one hundred yards further up the track. We slowed the pace when we saw the castle’s turrets and front wall silhouetted against the dark blue night sky. Smith and I kept in the shadows cast by the cliff face to our left. I felt the rough surface of the rock against my back as we moved closer to the castle entrance. The moans of the undead, still encamped in front of the large doors broke the tranquility of the night. They shambled around, bumping into one another while they plodded in an endless circle, banging their hands against the wooden gates.
We silently shuffled as close as we could to the castle entrance without the ghouls spotting us amongst the shadows and crouched down, around twenty-five feet to the left of the gates.
Smith leaned towards me and tapped me on the upper arm. “We’re going to need a diversion here,” he whispered. “We’re going to need to draw those bastards away from the castle gates.”
“How are we going to manage that?” I asked.
Smith quietly laughed. “Ah, that’s where you come into play, kid.”
I didn’t like where this was heading. “What the hell do you mean by that?”
“I want you to draw those zombies away from the gate but you have to do it quietly, okay?”
“You’re fucking kidding me, Smith, right?” I hissed.
“I need to get to those gates to set the C-4, Wilde Man and I need to do it unhindered and I can’t do it with those fucking zombies around. You know that.”
I took a long, outward breath. So Smith hadn’t wanted me to ride shotgun with him simply to help him out, as I was stupid enough to originally think. No, he’d planned to use me as bait all along.
Chapter Forty
“I’m not happy about doing this,” I protested. My stomach churned like a washer at the prospect of distracting the undead crowd, while Smith planted the explosive charges on the castle gates.
“Come on, kid. All you got to do is lead them into that small woodland back down the track and then double back here. I’m sure a man of your skills is capable of doing that.”
I rubbed sweat from my forehead with my hand. This supposedly well oiled plan was rapidly unfolding into another of Smith’s half-cocked, crazy ideas.
“How long do you need?” I asked.
“Five minutes tops,” Smith replied. “As soon as Lowie hears the bang, he’s going to head on up here with all guns blazing. You’ll be okay, kid.” He rested his hand on my shoulder.
“This wasn’t part of the original plan,” I continued.
Smith took his hand from my shoulder. “No, I’ll give you that but we can’t get inside that damn stronghold if we can’t blow the doors and to do that we need to draw those dead freaks away.”
I sighed heavily. This whispered conversation was going around in endless circles.
“Think about the guys stuck out there on that warship, Wilde Man,” Smith said.
I felt he was playing all the emotional cards he had. And unfortunately, he was right. We had to try and dislodge the militia in the castle somehow and this seemed the only way.
“Can’t you just throw the satchel with the C-4 over the gates?” I asked, clutching at straws.
I sensed Smith’s incredulity even in the darkness.
“What? Are you nuts? Even an Olympic shot thrower couldn’t toss a bag of explosives over those gates. Even if I could get close enough.”
I presumed Smith meant a shot putter but I didn’t argue the toss. I’d run out of excuses. It was time to spring into action and hope I’d live to see another dawn. If I did perish, I hoped my efforts would not be for nothing and we could help our stranded associates on the ship.
“All right,” I groaned. “I’ll give you five minutes but that’s all. Don’t forget, I’ve got a busted up ankle and I can’t run for long periods of time.”
“You’ll be a fucking hero, Wilde Man,” Smith said, tapping my shoulder.
“Somehow, I doubt that,” I muttered and slowly crept out from the shadows.
I moved in a sluggish, hunched stance, almost like a zombie myself. At first, the undead didn’t even acknowledge me. They continued on in their stumbling, macabre boogie around the front of the castle gates.
A short, female zombie with long dark hair and a light dress draped over the body lifted her head in the air as though she could smell me. The ghoul turned in a slow jerky movement. I couldn’t see the face clearly but her body seemed frail and she could possibly have been a child in her former life. A throaty growl croaked from somewhere deep inside her chest and she padded towards me through the pale moonlight.
I had to be ready to move.
I clicked my tongue against my teeth a couple of times. A sound people used to make when trying to encourage horses to move. Why they made that sound, I didn’t know but it seemed appropriate in the circumstances.
More undead began to turn in my direction, a deathly silence hushed over the morbid congregation. A very quick head count told me I was faced with around twenty ghouls and possibly more lurking in the shadows. They started to plod towards me.
It was time to move.
I turned and stumbled, my foot slipping on the uneven, dusty surface. I heard grunts and growls behind me as I straightened up, taking in a few deep breaths. I ran a few yards down the track and turned back to face the castle, checking if the undead were following. They were. And they were coming at me with a new found zest in their steps.
I let them catch up a little then continued jogging towards the small clump of trees to my left. The trees were dark. I heard moans all around me. Sweat dripped from my face. Fuck, I’d never felt so alone. The trees loomed out at me. My head buzzed. I had the buzzes…ringing in my ears…What the fuck?... I couldn’t breathe... Something was wrong. My vision flickered. Was I dying? I gripped the tree trunk next to me. The groans and moans babbled closer. I felt my eyeballs roll up… I was driving somewhere at night on a highway. A young kid...a girl stepped into the road…I ran straight into her…did I actually do that or was it…?
A skinny figure jumped out from behind a tree and tried to grab me.
“Ah-ha-ha, welcome to the woods,” the voice boomed. “
Who’s your friend when things get tough? Can’t do a little ‘cos he can’t do enough
.”
H R Pufnstuf…Kids TV
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