As darkness was swiftly approaching, we sorted out the guard rotas so that two of us would be keeping watch at any one time. Everyone else decided to sleep on the sofas in the lounge. They all agreed that they’d feel safer with everyone in the same room. Mattresses and duvets were dragged from upstairs bedrooms and soon, apart from the people on guard duty, silence descended as, exhausted, everyone fell into a deep sleep.
The night was peaceful and as soon as the sun started to rise on the eastern horizon, we began to get ready for the day ahead.
While Maud started on breakfast the rest of us finished preparing the vehicles. The delicious smell of bacon and eggs drifted out from the kitchen, making our mouths water and our stomachs rumble.
Stanley, Eddie and Daisy proudly showed us the items they’d collected for making zombie spears. They’d found some long metal bars which, if we could sharpen the points, would make excellent zombie killers. Shawn set to enthusiastically with the grinding wheel on the work bench in the barn and before long we had a respectable pile of sharply pointed spears. We let the kids proudly carry them over to the trailer and put them on the deck.
Simon and Ben had refilled their used magazines and cleaned their weapons the previous night. They’d also given us all a quick demonstration on how to fire and load them, just in case.
After a delicious breakfast we were almost ready to go. We filled up the fuel tanks on the tractor and Volvo then filled as many containers as we could find with extra diesel. We knew that we should be able to syphon fuel from all the abandoned vehicles we’d probably find everywhere, but it seemed sensible to carry as much as we could with us just in case.
Our final task was to secure the house and fix a sign to the front door explaining where we were heading.
As we pulled out of the yard, we made sure that the gate was securely closed. If other people came across the farm then with the gate closed and the farmhouse itself secure, hopefully it would remain free of zombies and would provide them with much needed shelter and sanctuary, as it had done us.
I led the way in the Volvo and Ben joined me to ride shotgun. Shawn had volunteered to drive the tractor so the trailer carried Becky, Stanley, Daisy and Eddie along with Chet, Louise, Maud and Simon. It was a good arrangement. I had the shotgun and Ben had his assault rifle. Shawn was well protected in his fortified tractor and therefore just had his crossbow and Simon’s assault rifle and Louise’s shotgun meant that the occupants of the zombie-proof ‘mobile castle’ would also be well defended.
We drove slowly along the track. The moors looked beautiful in the early morning light. I was reminded of the local folklore about not being deceived by the beauty of the moors. Most of the tales centred round the dangers of the unpredictable weather. The weather was the least of our worries. Zombies were our concern.
I slowed down and cautiously pulled on to the ‘B’ road at the bottom of the track. We’d planned the route very carefully and intended to drive off the moors and join the A38, then follow it all the way to Plymouth and the barracks.
For the first mile we saw nothing at all, but then we started to come across abandoned vehicles. There were some grim sights. Most were surrounded by the discarded fragments of human beings, presumably their previous occupants. The closer we got to the edge of the moors, the more death and destruction we discovered. As we turned on to the A38 I was relieved to find it clear. I sped up to about thirty miles per hour for the next few miles, weaving past the odd abandoned car until we came across a huge pile up that covered both carriageways.
Cars were piled up against each other as a chilling testament to the drivers’ desperation to escape from the horror around them. Many of the cars still contained their owners, snarling and writhing desperately but held fast by their seat belts. Others shuffled between the cars looking for more victims.
Shawn’s voice spoke through the walkie-talkie. ‘Guess it’s time to test the tractor. Pull out of the way and let’s see what this baby can do.’
My heart beating fast, I grabbed the radio and replied, ‘Go for it mate. We’ll follow and back you up.’
Reversing out of the way, Ben hauled back the tarpaulin covering the roof of my car, stood up on the seat, cocked his rifle and got ready. I leant my shotgun in the passenger footwell and made sure the cartridge bag was open so that I could load it and help if necessary.
The noise of our engines had proved irresistible to the nearest zombies and they began to move towards us. We watched as Shawn pulled the tractor forward and angling the bucket upwards to protect the wedge, used it to push vehicles out of the way. Slowly and skilfully he cleared a way through the tangled mass of metal.
The crazy ‘Mad Max’ modifications he’d made to the tractor were brilliant. Not one zombie could get anywhere near it. And if any of them managed to venture close to the trailer they were swiftly dispatched with a quick thrust from a zombie spear. We followed close behind.
We didn’t have a spear, and after Ben had shot the first few that came near us he realised that the adaptations Shawn had made to my car would keep us safe regardless, so he was able to relax a little. Better to save ammunition than try to shoot every zombie that came close.
He stood on the seat with his gun ready and ignored the ones who tried desperately but ineffectually to claw at the car. I used the wedge on the front of the car to great effect and managed to clear most of them out of our path. The zombie plough proved very effective and most were just gently pushed out of the way. Even if they fell over, it was strong enough to push them in front of us until either they rolled clear or, when I could feel the weight building up, I used an abandoned vehicle and scraped the plough against it to clear them off it.
The gruesome, writhing scrapheap left over from dragging zombies along the road wasn’t something you’d want to look at for long. Some lost arms or legs, which explained the odd bump the car felt as limbs were ripped off torsos and the car wheels ran over them. But unless the head had been crushed or torn off, the things stubbornly refused to die and continued to move, jerking and snapping their teeth, intent on trying to reach us even though we were now out of their reach forever.
The pile up seemed to go on forever. It was impossible to count the number of cars involved or how many poor souls had either been eaten or turned. The thought of the terror people must have experienced when they found the road blocked and their own exit cut off by the cars behind them, made my blood run cold. The fact that many of them had panicked and tried to escape anyhow was obvious from the crazy angles that some of the cars had ended up in. The thought that that could easily have been us sent a chill through me.
Cars had been driven into ditches or lay completely mangled, having attempted to smash through impossibly small gaps. We came across a clear area, where an articulated lorry had tried to use its weight and power to clear its own path. It had managed to get a few hundred metres before its bid for freedom had failed. The driver had clearly made a mistake and somehow the lorry had ended up on its side with the cab hanging in mid-air over a viaduct.
Shawn kept up a commentary over the radio, telling us to hang back a bit as he needed to do some shuffling backwards and forwards to clear a tricky area, or warning us if there was a particularly high concentration of zombies ahead.
‘There’s a coach ahead, and it’s surrounded by zombies. I think there may be people inside it.’
We couldn’t see past the path that Shawn was slowly making through the pile up.
‘Almost there,’ he announced. ‘I’ll try to pull up next to the coach and scrape the zombies away from one side. If you pull up tight behind me that should keep them away for a while at least.’
The coach came into view as Shawn pulled the tractor over and we watched as he used the wedge on the bucket to push the zombies that were banging on the side of the coach out of the way. Blood sprayed as some of them burst like overripe fruit when they were caught between the coach and the wedge.
I stopped my car so that the front of the zombie plough was tight up against the back of the trailer. Leaving the engine running, I grabbed my shotgun and stood up on my seat next to Ben, to get a better look at what was going on.
The front of the coach was a tangled mess of metal concertinaed into the back of a lorry. At least a hundred zombies were clawing at the sides of the coach, trying to reach whoever was still inside. Looking ahead I could see that we were almost at the end of the record breaking pile up. A hundred metres ahead the dual carriageway was clear of vehicles. The coach had almost made it.
Looking behind, I could see the pathway we had cleared. It stretched a few miles into the distance. The problem was, as well as creating a clear route for us, it had made it easier for the zombies to follow. Hundreds, if not thousands were slowly staggering towards us. We were the freshest meat in the area and our slow and noisy journey had attracted them like flies. They would continue to pursue us until we lost them or something else attracted their attention.
Becky, Simon, Louise and Chet were all looking over the metal sides of the trailer. ‘Can you see anyone inside?’ I called. ‘Keep checking behind us. We don’t want to hang around for too long. I’m not sure I want to find out if our vehicles will keep us safe against that lot!’
Simon leant over the side of the trailer and banged on a side window of the coach, shouting, ‘Is anyone in there?’
An answering scream of, ‘Help us!’ confirmed our suspicions.
Simon responded immediately and shouted, ‘Get away from the window!’ Then he grabbed one of the home made spears and began to hammer the window with it. The safety glass was hard to break but finally he managed to do enough damage to make it sag in its frame. He climbed up on to the side of the trailer and kicked the glass repeatedly until it fell into the coach.
As the glass fell in I could see three youths: two lads and a girl, crouching in the rear seats of the coach.
Becky called to them. ‘It’s ok, come on. We’ll help you get out of here.’
I looked behind us and realised that the swelling mass of zombies was now only about fifty metres away.
‘Hurry up! We need to get out of here now!’ I shouted.
Shawn still had to clear the last hundred metres or so of road and although we felt pretty much invincible in the fortified car and mobile castle, the sight of so many zombies converging on us was making me very nervous.
Ben began to fire his rifle but it was like trying to stop the tide with a sponge. A waste of time.
Chet and Simon were now helping the three teenagers out of the coach. Even though most of the zombies had been crushed into unrecognisable shapes by the tractor’s bucket, arms were still reaching out and trying to clutch them as they leaned tentatively out of the window and stepped over to the trailer.
Ben shouting, ‘Grenade!’ made me turn suddenly, just as he threw it into the middle of the heaving mass of undead.
The resulting boom was deafening and the zombies blew apart as the high explosive wreaked havoc. Arms, legs, torsos and a few heads flew up into the air.
‘Man did you see that!’ he whooped excitedly. ‘They fucking came apart!’ He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a second grenade. ‘One more and that should hold them back,’ he yelled as he lobbed the next one perfectly into the middle of the throng.
Once again the damage was extensive, yet nothing seemed to stop them. They had no concept of fear; their only instinct was to get to us. The carnage caused by the two grenades had slowed their progress a little but they just continued on, slipping heedlessly through entrails and tripping over body parts. But still they came.
As soon as Shawn starting moving the tractor, I jumped back down into my seat and put the car into drive. Then I began to follow him again. In my mirror for as far as I could see the horizon was filled with hundreds of zombies.
I hoped fervently that Shawn would have no problems clearing the road. As I followed the trailer steadily through the path that it had cleared, I occasionally stopped and reversed the car into the zombies just behind us. The wedge that Shawn had fixed to the rear of the car did its job and kept knocking them down, at the same time creating enough of an obstacle to slow the pack down and keep them at bay.
Eventually Shawn pushed the last car out of the way and the road ahead was clear. I grabbed the walkie-talkie thankfully. ‘Well done mate. Let’s keep going for a few miles then when you think it’s safe, we’ll stop for a breather.’
‘Ok,’ was all I got, as the tractor sped up and we left the scene of devastation behind us and continued down to the A38, towards Plymouth and the barracks.
Now we were fourteen.
The road ahead was reasonably clear and for a few miles we only encountered the odd abandoned car or lorry. Finally we reached the brow of a hill on the dual carriageway where you could see for a few miles in all directions. Shawn indicated and we pulled over to the side of the road.
Shawn and Simon spent a few minutes scanning the surrounding area with their binoculars before announcing that the area was clear. As Shawn climbed down from the tractor and Ben and I stepped out of the Volvo, we grabbed the ladder that Chet and Simon were lowering from the trailer and held it steady so that everyone could climb down.
I gave Becky and the kids a quick hug. The three newcomers hung back from us. Seeing this, Becky beckoned them over.
‘Hi,’ I said. ‘I’m Tom, Becky’s husband. You’ve met the other ones in the trailer. This is Shawn, the crazy tractor driver and Ben, my wingman in the Volvo. How long were you in that bus?’
It turned out that they’d spent two nights in there. The three were in their late teens or early twenties and looked tired and grubby. The two lads wore their hair quite long and had the air of public school boys. They were both wearing what looked like waiters’ uniforms and the girl was wearing a chef’s uniform complete with white clogs.