Authors Note – Hi Sorry It's taken a while to do this chapter. I've been a busy boy.
Well I hope you've liked what's happened so far, this chapter switches to side stories a couple of times and I hope that it doesn't throw you.
Character Note – Pvt Mendal – Asian, late twenties, bitter and arrogant. Not a particularly likable man.
-Pvt Max Richards – Utterly Ruthless, angry at Sgt Lester for promoting Damian Farnes to Corporal instead of him. Distrusts everyone, will sacrifice anyone to stay alive.
-Cpl Damian Farnes – Mid Thirties, Mischievous, joker, loyal and fun loving, serious when it matters.
-Pvt Sambo – Black, early thirties, staunchly loyal, struggling to cope after his friend Harris was shot by Sgt Lester after he was bitten.
-Sgt Chris Lester, hard and fun, a man of polar opposites. Angry but loving towards his men, utterly ruthless where the greater good is concerned. Hates pvt Richards for letting pvt Smith get killed.
They moved in a close group, keeping low and in the shadows as they crossed a car strewn road. They had tried several times now to get back to the flat, but had been met by huge groups of the undead who had pursued them relentlessly and drawn ever increasing numbers to block their path. About an hour and several close combat skirmishes later, they were tired, the sun was setting and they were facing a night exposed and pursued by a horde of hungry zombies without food or secure shelter and tempers were wearing thin.
"Fucking watch it you prick" growled Richards,
"What have I done now?" said Jimmy "I ain't fucking touched you"
"You trod on the back of my boot you little mug, so back off" replied Richards, pushing the smaller man into the rest of the group, a chorus of indignant noises came from them.
Farnes grabbed Jimmys shoulders as he surged back towards Max, with his fists balled. "He ain't worth it mate, chill" he whispered loudly into Jimmys ear.
Jimmy knew he was right, yanked himself free of Damians grasp, stared Max right in the eye smiled and brushed his chest as if he was wiping dirt off it.
"Yeah smile it up prick, I'll be laughing last" snarled Max turning back around. Chris bulled his way through the group, and chucked a bundle to Damian. "Silencer on Farnes you're on point"
Damian looked down at the bundle in his hands to look at the only pair of night vision goggles they had gotten away with. Everyone looked first at him then at the sky and realised that the sun had set and the street lights were turning on. They all spun as a moan came from close by. Kate jerked back as a rotting hand tried to grab her body armour, she then drew the knife from her boot, grabbed the zombies throat and jammed the blade into its milky eye. An unexpected high pitched whine came from it mouth and black, clotted goo bubbled from the wound and run over her glove. "Oh God that's fucking disgusting" said Kate letting the shaking zombie go. They all watched, enthralled by its jerky staggering dance before it fell into the side of a car smashing the window noisily. A chorus of close moans told them they had to leave now.
"Crap we gotta find a place to crash now" said Ben looking to Lester who nodded his agreement.
They sprinted across the road, dropping the couple of zombies in their path in silence; the smoke from burning buildings stung the eyes as did the flickering street lights and the few still running car lights. Shadows moved all around them from these multiple light sources making them panicky and paranoid at every peripheral sight. "Shit, here they come" said Sambo pointing to the end of the road where a tide of zombies wandered towards them, drawn by the sound of the window smashing. The soldiers lined up, Mendal and Farnes knelt a pace in front of Sambo all awaiting the order to open fire, Lester stood aside, a thoughtful expression on his face. Jimmy looked at Kate, and she shrugged at the unasked question.
"Pack it up boys we're not staying here" said Chris tapping them on the shoulders and pointing to the road parallel to them, no street lights illuminated it but many moans could be heard. To a man their faces paled and their hearts filled with dread. They were going into the town centre. They stood in silence for a moment, screams and the sounds of fierce battles raging could be heard from not far away, Ben smashed a zombie coming from behind Jimmy and mashed it's skull into paste, he looked to Kate and Jimmy "We can't get back to Jo right now, we've tried, he'll understand, we've gotta stick with these guys or we'll never last the night" Kate nodded, the guilt on her face faded a bit, but Jimmy still looked angry "We should have fought our way through, we could be safe back at mine now"
"Great and we could have had a few hundred stenches knocking on the door for dinner too" said Ben "We can't let them follow us there, we'll go back in the morning, even if we have to leave these guys, I promise"
They took a deep breath and followed the soldiers into the darkness each holding the back of the person in front, led by Damian and his night vision goggles. "I hope your right about this" said Kate
"So do I" said Ben more to himself than as a reply.
***
Tim ran down the alley, fear and pain drove him on ahead of the zombies shambling after him, his arm throbbed from the bite that monster gave him earlier. "God, it was a fucking little girl" he thought. The memories of seeing the girl that had spelled his doom, all covered in blood in the street earlier crying filled his mind. He stumbled and fell as the memories washed over him. Screaming people and zombies had filled the street, fighting a desperate battle to escape and survive bullets cut through the crowd and soldiers panicked as they were overrun. He had seen the little girl torn from her dying fathers' arms and mauled by 2 ghouls; one of them in an army uniform, its left arm missing sank its teeth into her raised hands. He could hear the girls' shouts and for her father and for help rise to a terror filled crescendo. He sprinted through the crowd desperately trying to reach her, bullets like angry wasps tore though the air around him dropping people and zombies all lover the street, those people wounded were then set upon by the zombies they had fled or fought. Tim clambered onto the top of a police car and almost fell of again as it shuddered under bullet impacts, the number of shots was rapidly diminishing as the troops at the barricade were being overrun one by one. He launched himself off the bonnet and stumbled into a young woman who was send sprawling to the ground, panicking people trampled her and she screamed in pain. Tim pushed the people away from her, clearing a tiny space and lifted her to her knees "Get up their coming!" he shouted to her. She smiled in gratitude and her pretty face lit up at his kindness, she opened her mouth to thank him and then her head exploded. A stray bullet has cut through and impossible gap in the crowded street, missing cars, people and zombies. Then it burrowed its way through her nasal cavity, through the mush of her brain and out the back of her head, the sonic shock of it blowing her head apart. Tim crouched, being knocked here and there by the battle, bits of the woman's brain and skull covered his face and shirt. He snapped out of his horror in another heartbeat as his mind buried the feelings of shock and he ran for the girl, he could see her now, kicking frantically at the zombie trying to bite her feet, she clutched her bleeding arm where the other zombie, just felled by a man with a hammer, had bitten her.
He never paused in his stride, grabbed a loose paving brick as her stooped low, and swung it forward and up in the same movement. It caught the Stench in the temple snapping the brick in half and caving in the beasts head. "Fuck" he shouted and clutched his numb but painful hand. He grabbed the girl who was barely even wriggling now; she muttered and moaned in agony, though it was muted by the roar of the crowd. He scooped her up with another brick and forced another path back to his shop. He smashed another 3 zombies to the ground as they seized him in the crowd, guilt wrenched at his heart as he was sure he had also smashed a wounded man back down as he had grabbed at his leg. Tim knew that between the gun shot and brick smash to the head, that he was zombie food by now, just a few seconds after it had happened.
He finally reached his door and he turned back to the street, there were so many zombies and people and so few soldier and police at the barricade and rooftops, more of the latter were becoming the former every second.
He slammed the door shut behind him and his girlfriend Julie came rushing over bat in her hand and fear in her eyes.
"Wait, Julie it's me" he nearly dropped the girl as he raised his arm to defend himself.
Julie stopped mid swing, sobbed, dropped the bat and wrapped herself around him crying. "I didn't think you'd make it back" I saw you on the car and saw you fall" she said between sobs.
"I didn't fall, I jumped. Darling I need you to help me with the girl, she's been hurt, and one of those freaks bit her"
They moved apart and Julie checked the girl over, and looked at her wound, it was angry red with bits of black in and around it"
"She's burning up and her pulse is fading, that thing that bit her pumped some serious germs straight into her, she's in septic shock of some kind" Said Julie.
"Take her upstairs and do what you can, I'll guard the doors" said Tim picking up the bat, Julie turned and headed up the stairs.
"Julie, I love you" he said looking up at her. Julie half turned "I love you too". And she carried on up the stairs and into the bedroom.
An hour later, Tim was looking outside though the window. Careful to keep low and in the shadows and not attract attention he watched as the battle outside still raged, large groups of armed people clashed with larger groups of zombies in running battles, the police were all gone and the last of the troops had run away. He had gone up to check on Julie and the girl twice now, the last time Julie had just looked at him and shaken her head they had hugged and kissed and he had gone back downstairs, but the images of the dying girl filled his mind. The girls' skin was waxy looking and grey, her eyes fluttering and dry, and her breath short and ragged and the wound itself had covered half of her little arm with rotten flesh and pus. "It's only a matter of time before she moves on" he thought to himself. He made himself a cup of tea and ate a chocolate bar and rested for a few minutes. He suddenly heard some banging from upstairs then a very large bang and Julie's scream. He dropped his cup of tea, snatched up his bat and sprinted up the stairs. The bedroom door was half open, he nudged it the rest of the way with his foot. Blood covered the floor, spreading a thick red stain across the carpet. Tim's eyes followed the trail to its source in an instant and saw the supposedly drying girl straddling Julies chest, ripping chunks of meat from her neck. Julies' last feeble blows with a lamp to her back did nothing and her arm fell limp at the same time Tim screamed and ran into the room. The zombie girl turned her head slowly to this new sound and the bat smashed into her right shoulder and threw her small body against the bloodstained bed. Tim kept his eye on the girl, she was now rising from the floor again, slow and clumsy like a minture drunk. Tim Grabbed Julies foot and began to drag her towards the door. "God, hold on babe, hold on" he repeated in a mantra, he couldn't tear his eyes from his girlfriends milky eyes and ravaged throat. He looked around to check how far he was from the door, when the girl grabbed the sleeve holding Julie. Tim yelled in fright and tried to drag his hand away from her but only succeeded in dragging her closer, he cried out in pain as her teeth, dug through his sleeve into the meat of his arm, then crushed shut, scissoring a lump of flesh from his arm shirt material as well. He back handed her with his bat hand and slammed the bat down again and again on the girls head, a single hungry moan escaped her lips as her little face dissolved and she laid still, the bit of tim's arm fell with a wet thump out of her mouth. Tim looked over at Julie, he now understood; it was the bites that made them. He clutched his bat tight as Julies left hand twitched. He swung once and began to cry, slumped down in the corner, clutching his burning, bleeding arm.
As his head began to clear he could hear thumping then suddenly a loud smash from downstairs. The sound of Julie screaming and the fight had alerted zombies from outside. Their moans attracting more and more until their blows had breached the shop front. He sprung up, ran to the bath room as the thunderous noise of feet coming up the stairs reached him. Opened the window and climbed out onto the fire escape, he peered through the darkness down into the alley below and there was only one zombie wandering aimlessly, he looked back into his bathroom to see four more zombies waddling towards him moaning. Tim swore viciously ran down the metal stairs as fast as he could, but tripped only one flight from the floor, his bat went flying and rolled to a stop past the zombie in the alley. His noisy descent had alerted many more and the alley mouth swarmed with the dead, a loud clang from above told him that at least one of the zombies in his bathroom had gotten through the window he had foolishly left open. He jumped the last 8 feet to the alley, as he stood his vision swam and he suddenly felt very weak. His arm burned like a brand and it was running with pus already. He stumbled as fast as he could still way ahead of the undead monsters behind him.
His memory finished, reality came back with the stench of the dead and garbage, he tried to stand but fell again his vision blurred by a white haze and he felt as though he was asleep. With supreme effort he got to his feet and sprinted for the end of the alley, his lungs burnt and his heart slowed and as he emerged out of the alley it beat its last and as he fell he smashed into a car window and fell back onto his face dead.
***
They had walked for around five minutes in the pitch black each leading the one behind. Damian led the group using his night vision goggles to steer the group through the abandoned cars and small groups of zombies. The sounds of moaning, shouting and battle came from close by. All had their close combat weapons drawn and had used them in the last if a stench got too close. Damian froze and the others followed suite. A man had ran out of an alley and fallen into a car window. Zombies didn't run so he thought it was a survivor. They ran over and Sambo knelt down next to Tims body turned him over, the darkness making him unaware of the wound on his arm. "I think he's dead Sir" he said looking behind him at Lester. Suddenly Tim's hands had grabbed Sambo's hair and armour vest and pulled himself up and sunk his lower teeth into the Black mans eye while his top teeth stripped the skin from his forehead. In the pitch black there was utter confusion of thrashing limbs moans and Sambo's screaming for help, the others could barely see an outline of the struggle but Damian spun and put three silenced pistol rounds into the zombie's head, its distinct crack muffled by its silencer. Sambo moaned in agony and with a roar of anger put his own pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Even the confines of the poor troopers head didn't stop the loud bang echoing around them. A choir of moans caused them all to bunch together and Damian could see the horde pouring towards the end of the alleyway, only 20ft away. "Grab each other and let's go, now, come on move move" shouted Damian deadly serious. They all lined up and ran, Farnes leading them through the maze of cars and they could all see light up ahead, mid run Damian tore the goggles off they turned left onto Camden Road and into the town centre. Battle still raged as running groups of people were smashing zombies to death, while others were dragged down screaming to be torn apart and join the ranks of the undead. Bricks and other missiles rained down on the melee in the street from the buildings around but a solid wall of zombies choked the end of the long road and was rapidly tearing their way down towards them swallowing the pockets of street fighters with sheer numbers. They sprinted down the streets, weapons drawn and already being used. Lester put three rounds into the face of a zombie soldier grabbing at a middle aged man then knifed a second in the eye. Jimmy was sending arrows into the dead with deadly accuracy, felling at least 6. Mendal and Richards hung back putting single rounds into every zombie they saw. Damian had scooped up a SAW lying in the road and was pouring fire into the main horde felling dozens, a literal meat grinder, sending limbs and blood and meat scattering over a wide area. Ben and Kate stuck together on the left accompanied by 4 new people the new people looked like family and they helped each other, stabbing and clubbing their way forward. Ben blasted the upper body and head off of a zombie with the shotgun and grinned. He'd always wanted to use one of these things and they were living up to his dream. He racked another shell and tore a zombie coming up behind Kate. She spun around at the noise and grinned, wrenching her hammer out of her victim's skull and moving on. They were headed for the Church only 50ft ahead but the horde was only 100ft away from it. They had to move now, "Run called Ben and Lester at the same time. At that moment, the doors to the pub they had just passed burst open and a flood of people came pouring out, at least 30 people bundled out, many unarmed, as the human tide slowed a few people stumbled out screeching in pain, two still had zombies wrapped around them feasting as their victims tried to run. A horde of Zombie's then vomited forth after their prey. "RUN FOR THE CHURCH" someone shouted.
The panicked group began to run, through the barricades and cars and still fighting groups of people and zombies. Running people streamed past the small group of soldiers. Mendal was bumped again, he'd had enough of these pathetic people and when a middle aged man bumped him trying to flee, Mendal smashed the stock of his gun into the mans face. The man dropped without a sound and Mendal grinned, he kicked the man until he moaned in pain then hurried on after the mob of people. The man groaned and opened his already swelling eyes, blurry silhouettes surrounded him, as the decaying face resolved itself he screamed and tried to rise but the weight of the three feasting stenches kept him down until he finally stopped kicking and screaming. Chris Stood on a car and surveyed what was going on, he fired the last of his clip into the horde chasing the large group of survivors and waved them on "Come on keep going, keep running, don't stop running" he called to them a dashing figure of authority for them to cling to. They obeyed without question. Even those people who were fighting in the street broke off and headed for the church. Everyone was snatching up fallen weapons from the floor as they ran, guns, bricks; knives and bats littered the road from those brave fighters and soldiers who had fallen throughout the day. Chris head a buzzing then a dull thud from right behind him, he spun, knife up for a blow and a zombie fell against him. He yelled in surprise and fell from the car with his decaying assailant still on him. HE rolled and stood up sharply the zombie didn't rise, a bright blue arrow sticking out of the back of it's skull he looked up to see Jimmy grinning and waving. He smiled and caught a hold of Damian who was running past. "Get everyone into the church and check them all for bites. They all need to strip right down, then get that Kate girl to check every inch of all of them, she was a nurse right? If anyone objects then one of you covers them and you make them strip" yelled Chris to Damian over the din.
"Yes Sir" Damian saluted and sprinted off. Chris fell into step with Ben who was staving in the ribs then skull of another zombie. "Not everyone made it" said Ben pointing back down the road; 9 different groups of zombies gathered over fallen people, tearing and ripping them to eat, Lester shrugged, he had done his best.
Richards, Mendal and Kate were the first to arrive at the church the shabby group of survivors at their backs. Between them and a group of willing volunteers they hauled the huge heavy doors open and ushered everyone in. Ben and Chris were the last to come in, alongside a young couple they had saved from being grabbed.
The doors shut with the heavy clang of iron lined oak and the heavy iron lock bar put in place. The place was filthy and stank of death, the pews were lined with dead people, slumped this way and that. Many of them still clutched pistols or bottles of pills that they had used to kill themselves and their loved ones, a few survivors milled through the dead gathering these few pistols and their ammo, then a large group or men began dragging the bodies into a far corner, their friends covering them with bats and scavenged SA80's. Lester Gathered the soldiers together, "Right we need to check everyone in here for bites, everyone strips down and is checked by Kate, 2 people cover her while she checks. If anyone doesn't wanna strip then we make them, we can't risk an outbreak in here" The troops nodded then relayed the message onto Ben Kate and Jimmy. "They won't like it" said Kate, "But it needs to be done said Ben.
Chris stood on top of a pew and shouted to get every ones attention. "Everyone, please quiet down, I'm Sergeant Chris Lester and I have a few things to say" the crowd grumbled but most listened intently. "We need to sort out all the things we have with us, food, water, medical supplies, clothing and weapons. We need to check all entrances, doors and windows are secure and to make sure we have a clear escape route if this all goes tits up. First of all though we need to make sure nobody here risks everyone else" there was much more muttering and confused looks amongst the throng. "We have a qualified nurse and a secure back room, and we have to check every last one of you for bites, in case you hadn't realised that's how you become one of them outside so it means each and every one of you, ourselves included will examined at gun point by two others, my troops and I can be supervised by other volunteers so to eliminate favouritism or lying. Parents can supervise their children and men can supervise your partners and visa versa, we ain't monsters we just want to be safe, these examinations will conducted, if you don't wanna be checked then we will assume you have a bite and we will put you down as I'm sure all here will agree with me. The crowd murmured their agreement and the faces he could see in the crowd looked perfectly happy that such precautions were being taken. If you're not being checked or on guard somewhere in the building, clear away bodies and start sorting the essentials I talked about" finished Lester. As everyone started moving a loud high pitched giggle made them all jump, it echoed eerily around the dark hall. In a gallery next to the alter a Young girl stood, back lit by a lamp, her once lilac dress stained red and brown with blood and fluids, her long dark hair hung limp half covering a pretty but equally blood covered face, in her right hand she clutched a decapitated teddy and in her left she had a baseball bat studded with nails slung across her narrow shoulders, it's spikes covered in clotted blood and hair. "At last, Friends!" her eerily emotionless voice carried to the stunned room. "My name is Clare" she said "I've just killed my family"