They all turned and talked among themselves for a minute.
The farmer turned back to us, ‘All right. We’ll go and have a look. Why are you wearing masks?’
While I was explaining the trailer was hauled out of the way by a tractor. A man and a woman on a quad bike squeezed through the gap and roared up the road.
I realised that I’d been clutching my knife tightly throughout, and put it back into its sheath, which I’d clipped on to my belt. As I did so, I noticed everyone relaxing slightly.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Forgot I was still holding it. It’s been a hell of a day!’
In less than a minute, we heard the quad bike returning. As expected, it was travelling much faster than it had done on the way out. It skidded to a halt right beside us.
‘Fucking zombies!’ the man yelled. ‘They tried to get us, but we turned around just in time. Jim Barker was one of them. He was covered in blood and half his arm was hanging off but he still tried to grab me!’
Everyone started shouting at once until the farmer finally had to bawl at them all to be quiet. He turned to us.
‘So it’s like ‘The Walking Dead?’
‘Yes,’ Shawn, Becky and I said together.
He released a few mouthfuls of expletives before turning to us again.
‘What can we do?’
Shawn seized his opportunity. ‘Well, believe it or not, this is something I’ve prepared for. First you need to let us through, then you have two choices. Stay or go, it’s as simple as that. If you stay here you’ll need to work together. Build barriers and fences; anything to stop them or at least slow them down. You can only kill them by destroying their brains so prepare yourselves for that and gather what weapons you have. I notice you have shotguns and rifles. Great! But conserve your cartridges and ammunition because once you’ve run out you’ll be in trouble. We’ve found out by tying one up and experimenting that they need to breathe, but as I’ve said, the best way to kill them is to target the brain. I don’t know how many you’ll be facing but we’ve only seen one car leave St Agnes and that looked as if it had to fight its way out. There could be thousands of the things heading your way. You’ve seen the fictional version, now you’re going to be living it. Oh, and we know they can see reasonably well and are attracted to noise, so bear that in mind.’
He paused to let it all sink in. The farmer turned to the couple on the quadbike, ‘How many were there?’
‘Twenty or so,’ replied the woman, ‘I didn’t stop to count them!’
‘First of all we need to get everyone together. They all need to know exactly what’s happening.’ He turned to us. ‘Sorry about not letting you through before. You might just have saved all our lives. Is there anything we can do to help you before you go?’
I shrugged, not really knowing what to say, but Shawn replied without hesitation. ‘Some water would be useful, or at least a container I can carry some in. I only have my water bottle and there are more of us now.’ He paused for a moment, thinking. ‘A tarpaulin would be good too, and maybe some better weapons. And if you could spare any tinned food that would be great.’
‘I’m sure we can sort most of that out,’ he said. ‘Do you want to come with me?’ He pointed to a farm building about a hundred metres away. ‘Just let me speak to the rest of the village first.’
He gave orders for the trailer to be moved and we pulled forward, thankful for the protection it offered.
While the farmer was waiting for everyone to gather, we took the chance to get the kids out of the car.
There are only so many ‘it’s going to be all rights’ you can say when you’re in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. Stanley, who had always been very perceptive, and quick to assess any situation he was in, summed it up:
‘Dad. Those people we saw are dead aren’t they? If we don’t kill them, they’ll kill us so you need to show me how to do it. If something happens to you then I can still protect mommy and Daisy.’
The way he stood there, looking so small but trying so hard to be the man he wanted to be, brought tears to my eyes. I gave him a fierce hug. ‘Stanley, from now on I’m going to need your help. I can’t make things any easier but we probably will have to do and see some truly awful things. Things nobody should ever have to deal with. I’m relying on you to be my right hand man.’
He stood even straighter and seemed to grow a few inches in height, ‘What about Eddie dad, can he help as well?’
I looked over at Eddie. The poor kid was still traumatised but clearly yearned for approval. ‘Of course! I’m going to need both of you. You look like a strong lad Eddie. Do you think you could help us?’
Eddie looked at me and his face changed slightly. The haunted look started to fade and was replaced by a look of determination. He suddenly seemed more aware of his surroundings. I couldn’t help but wonder how many more people we would have to gather to us before this was all over.
The sound of a gunshot and a scream of ‘zombies!’ made me pull my knife back out of my sheath. Grabbing the children, I got them back to the safest place I could think of: my car.
I saw Shawn reaching for Stanley’s cricket bat and stopped him, saying, ‘Can I have that back please, I think I know someone who wants it.’
Becky was standing by the car with her knife in her hands. I opened the car and handed Stanley the cricket bat. Hunkering down, I looked at him and said, ‘I need you to have this son. If they get too close just hit them as hard as you can until they fall over.’
He grabbed it and nodded fiercely.
I ran back to the trailer. I could see that there were at least twenty zombies approaching. It looked like the same group we’d rescued Eddie from. I actually recognised a few of them; presumably they’d followed the quad bike back, proving the theory that they were attracted by sight and sound. They probably just kept on going, doggedly pursuing whatever caught their attention, until distracted by something else.
‘Aim for the head!’ I yelled, as I could see that, despite a few shots being fired, none of the zombies were down.
The man with the rifle took aim and fired but as far as I could tell, completely missed. Minute by minute they were getting closer. Someone else fired his shotgun and hit the nearest zombie in the arm. The arm hung gruesomely from the elbow by a scrap of skin but, undaunted, the thing kept coming.
Already feeling like a veteran, I looked at Shawn and said, ‘Shall we?’
He nodded.
I shouted, ‘Stop firing!’ over and over as we stepped past the trailer and stood facing the crowd of flesh hungry zombies.
I wasn’t thinking about the villagers. My wife and my children were behind the barricade and if any of them got any closer there was a chance they could get through. I needed to stop them now.
I lunged at the nearest zombie, stabbed it through the top of its head and pushed it away. I went for the next and rammed my knife through the side of its head. Much better; the blade passed smoothly in and out.
‘Stab them through the side; it’s easier!’ I shouted to Shawn, who I could see out of the corner of my eye was attacking those closest to him. The zombies had spaced themselves out nicely rather than bunching up. Very thoughtful of them because it made our job much simpler.
Stab push, stab push.
It wasn’t long before we’d killed them all. When there were no more left it took a few seconds for us both to realise that it was over. Panting with a mixture of terror and exertion and dripping with sweat, we gazed in shock at our handiwork.
The ground in front of the barricade was littered with crumpled bodies. The sound of cheers and clapping brought us out of our reverie. The sheer raw excitement and exhilaration of what we’d done hit us both. We’d just taken part in a mad stabbing frenzy and slaughtered over twenty zombies. We’d faced up to one of the most frightening things imaginable and come out of it successfully.
We were zombie killers. We were going to survive this!
We shouted and punched the air, primal emotions building up inside us. The villagers surrounded us, strangers we’d never met before congratulating us, grabbing our hands, and thanking us for saving their lives.
I looked down at myself and then looked at Shawn, surprised that we weren’t covered in more blood. Yes we’d been splattered with some when it had sprayed off our knife blades, but unlike in the movies where you couldn’t kill a zombie without being coated from head to toe in blood and gore, the truth was that zombies don’t bleed much.
Perhaps it was the fact that their metabolism was slower. Their heart rate and blood pressure were likely to be much reduced, as they only needed to move to get to the next meal and weren’t performing any of the highly complex tasks normally required of our bodies: tasks which tend to require substantial amounts of energy.
With the help of the world’s most powerful computers, scientists were just beginning to build humanoid robots capable of successfully replicating simple movements. Our remarkable bodies accomplish complex tasks using their matrix of brain power, muscles, tendons and senses, all of which enable us to balance from when we are about one year old, but that expends a lot of energy. A zombie didn’t need all those abilities so it made sense that their bodies slowed down to conserve energy.
As I walked back behind the trailer, Becky hurled herself at me again. I hadn’t been hugged that much for ages. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the zombie situation I’d have suspected her of being after something!
I pushed her away gently. ‘Let’s get going darling; we still need to keep moving and find somewhere safer. Then we can rest.’
The farmer approached, his hand outstretched, ‘Thank you so much. Now you really have saved our lives. We’ll never be able to repay you.’
I shook his hand. ‘It’s fine. Remember, I was protecting my family as well. If you could help us out with the things Shawn asked for, then we’ll get going. We really want to stick to our plan and keep moving.’
‘Of course. Just drive up to my barn and I’ll get you what you need. If you could just give me a minute, I’ll start getting everyone organised.’ He was a natural leader and in no time at all had issued instructions for everyone to start gathering the equipment they would need to start building their defences.
Once he was satisfied that everyone knew what they were doing, he climbed into Shawn’s car and we all drove the short distance to his outbuildings. Once there, he introduced us to his wife and quickly updated her on what had happened. Then he instructed her to get us some food from the pantry.
She must have been made of stern stuff because she took it all in her stride, remarked that they’d better get the cows in before they were eaten, and announced her intention of putting a bag of food together for us. She invited Becky and the kids to accompany her to the kitchen.
We followed him into the barn. He was clearly an organised man because it was spotless and the shelves and racks were neatly stacked with a whole array of items. He quickly found a six metre by six metre tarpaulin and an empty twenty five litre water container, which he started filling from a tap on the wall.
‘Now what weapons were you thinking of?’ he said, gesturing towards his tools.
‘I could make a spear from a length of wood but an axe would be useful,’ replied Shawn thoughtfully.
‘A hand or a felling axe?’
‘Both if you have them. I normally have a hand axe with my kit but stupidly I’ve left it at home.’
‘Here you go,’ he said and handed Shawn one of each.
I’d been rummaging through some of the shelves and had found a heavy looking machete in a sheath. Feeling that I was pushing my luck, I asked for it anyway. He’d been more than generous as it was. He handed it to me without hesitation, assuring me that he had plenty of tools.
Shawn asked if he had any diesel, as he’d made his escape from the garage earlier without filling up. Once again the farmer was happy to oblige. A truly unselfish and generous man.
As we carried our gifts back to the car, he pointed to his diesel tank and told Shawn to back up to it, joking that he’d better not get stopped by the police as it was red diesel and they didn’t take kindly to ordinary motorists using it. He even asked if we wanted to take a few jerry cans of fuel with us, an offer we would have been stupid to refuse. So of course we didn’t.
By now Becky had emerged from the farmhouse carrying a large bag of food. I was anxious to get going again. I’ll admit that the thought of staying and helping these people had occurred to me, but I’d quickly decided that moving on was the right thing to do. We needed to find somewhere really remote for a while.
I made sure that everyone was safely in the car and then walked up to our farmer friend, shook his hand and thanked him for the last time. As our small convoy drove away, I realised that I’d never even thought to ask his name. Everything had happened so fast. I glanced in my rear-view mirror and sincerely hoped that we’d given them enough time to prepare themselves for the horror they would be facing before too long.
The route we’d quickly traced out proved to be the correct one. For the first thirty minutes we didn’t see another soul. Every house in every hamlet or small village we passed through was deathly quiet. Whether everyone was dead or just quiet we didn’t know!
It was possible that everyone was following the government’s advice and staying indoors. I wasn’t sure. But I did notice that there weren’t many cars parked on driveways or outside houses. One explanation might have been that, on hearing the news, most people had assumed that it was a local event and decided that the best course of action would be to go somewhere else. Or more worryingly, perhaps the virus had spread so effectively that the locals were now all zombies.
Had we been the lucky ones, and by pure chance, somehow escaped becoming infected?
I thought it through. The UK had a population of over sixty million. By the morning of day two of the apocalypse, the number of people actually infected or who had already transformed into a zombie would be huge, but surely this still only accounted for a small percentage of the population as a whole? The few people who had followed the government’s advice and remained isolated from everyone should have survived day one without being infected. The rest, unfortunately, would have run in all directions. Human beings are social animals and we automatically seek safety in numbers. The majority would probably have escaped the initial outbreaks but then fallen victim to the unprecedented way in which the virus spread.