Entry Twenty
The sun was going down when me, Clay and Misfit, with fresh fish, a few seagulls and a couple of squirrels strung up and slung over his shoulder, climbed up the track to our camp. Charlotte let us in through the fence panel and as we approached the blazing fire, my chilled exposed skin welcomed its warmth. Sean emerged from the main caravan holding up two bottles of whisky. ‘I found these in the stack of supplies,’ he said easing himself down beside the fire next to Kay. ‘Life’s been pretty shit for a while and I intend to get wankered. Anyone want to join me?’
‘Why not,’ I said as I sat down on the other side of Kay.
‘I’ll go and get some glasses,’ said Charlotte.
‘We don’t need glasses,’ said Sean, twisting the top off one of the bottles and taking a swig, before handing the bottle to Kay. ‘Let’s do this cowboy style.’ He opened the other bottle and held it across to Stewart, who sat cross legged, strumming his guitar. He hesitated for a moment before taking the bottle from Sean.
Kay passed her bottle to me and I gulped down a large mouthful, feeling the liquid burn my throat. For me, neat whisky starts off a disgusting experience with the initial vile, medicinal taste and the burning in my mouth, then the pleasure kicks in as I track the gentle warmth as it flows down my throat to my stomach. I took another swig, smaller this time and passed the bottle to Misfit. Our day’s haul lay at his feet, and he had his hunting knife at the ready to skin the cute dead squirrels.
Misfit knocked back a hefty mouthful of whisky and raised the bottle in a ‘cheers’ motion towards Sean. Sean nodded to Misfit and accepted the other bottle back from Stewart, while Misfit passed his bottle onto Charlotte. She took a dainty sip and winced as though she’d just sucked a lemon, before handing it to Clay.
‘Nah, I don’t really drink,’ he said, his palm out to ward off the bottle. Charlotte went to pass the bottle back to Misfit when Clay changed his mind. ‘But I guess the one swig couldn’t hurt.’ He took the bottle from Charlotte and knocked back a hefty glug.
Stewart played his guitar while the whisky bottles were passed back and forth, stopping to take the occasional glug whenever the whisky came his way. Soon one of the bottles lay empty by the fire. Stewart started playing a song and I recognised it immediately as
Zombie
by The Cranberries and I laughed at his twisted music choice. Stewart glanced up at me, a glint in his eye and flashed his cheeky grin. I began singing the words, unashamed of my shaky, tuneless voice, but still relieved when Misfit joined in to cover my own inadequacies as a singer with a strong, soulful voice I never imagined would come out of him.
I smiled as I sang, but tears ran down my cheeks as I sang words written to remember two boys killed in an IRA bombing. Mothers had now lost their children to zombies, but the lyrics reminded me no zombie – a creature driven by the instinct to feed – is as bad as what humans can do to humans.
Everyone, except Sean, joined in with the chorus and we sang and we drank the last of the whisky. Misfit disappeared for a little while, just as Stewart played a David Bowie tune, and returned with some beers. Movement in the dark outside the camp alerted me that our party had attracted a few zombies, but I didn’t care. The tears had already dried on my cheeks and I laughed as Stewart started playing
Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive
and, as he sang the lyrics, I embraced a moment of merriment with my family. And after the crappy couple of days we’d had, I figured we deserved it.
I shot up to a sitting position, awake in an instant at the sound of a bang on the side of
the caravan. I had gone to sleep on the sofa in the living room of the main caravan with Misfit beside me, and a completely hammered Clay had crashed on the floor.
All the curtains in the caravan were drawn and, in the dim light, I saw Misfit standing by the door, his left hand on the handle. In his right, he held a hunting knife. We stared at each other with wide eyes. At the sound of another bang, Clay groaned. ‘My head,’ he said, levering himself up and looking from me to Misfit. Misfit raised a finger on his knife hand to his lips.
More banging, this time down the whole length of the caravan. I clambered off the sofa, grabbed my knife and stood beside Misfit, while Clay threw off his blanket. He picked his gloves off the floor and held onto them by the wrist straps. I shifted the nearest curtain ever so slightly with my right forefinger and peered outside into the gloomy morning. Zombies … everywhere. Misfit put his finger to his lips again while Clay slipped his gloves on his hands.
‘What the fuck is going on out there?’ yelled Kay as she burst out of my old bedroom.
‘Shhh,’ said Misfit.
‘How the bloody hell did that lot get in here?’ she carried on, her axe clutched to the front of her body. Sean followed her out of the room, hurriedly putting a t-shirt on over his bruised torso, before grabbing his long coat from a hook by the door and slipping it on. In his right hand, he held his crowbar. The banging on the side of the caravan intensified now the zombies had heard Kay announce their breakfast was ready.
Charlotte darted out of her room, all long curly hair flying, making her look like the Tasmanian Devil in full whirlwind mode. ‘Fuck,’ she said, coming to a stop next to me and peering out through a gap in the curtain.
‘The camp’s swarming with them,’ I said.
‘But how could they have got in through the fence?’ Kay asked again.
I thought back to our little party last night … had the noise attracted so many zombies they’d been able to push down the fence panel?
The caravan shook from the pounding it received and the door rattled in its frame. ‘I don’t know, but right now we need to concentrate on clearing them and getting the place secure again,’ I said. I spied a fire extinguisher on the side of the built in TV cabinet, needing something weighty to throw down on the zombies to prevent them from surging forwards when the door was opened. I dived towards it. But then I had a better idea and, sliding my knife through my belt, I wrapped my arms around the portable Cathode Ray TV. Nice and heavy in my arms. I carried it over to the door and nodded for Misfit to open up.
As I predicted, the zombies surged forwards. I threw the TV set down at them, knocking the ones outside the door backwards and into the ones behind. Clay leapt forwards, out into the zombies, swinging his spiked gloved hands with a left hook then a right hook, into their rotting heads.
I slid my knife from my belt and followed Misfit down the steps and out into the fighting arena. Cold grey clouds hung heavy in the sky above me. I slashed and stabbed zombies as they came at me – me, Misfit, Clay, Sean, Kay and Charlotte all naturally forming a circle, our backs facing inwards as we all moved as one, away from the caravan and into the centre of the camp. I could see the fence panel stood wide open, and more zombies staggered in from the track.
I couldn’t even count the amount of zombies that lumbered towards us, all hungry for fresh meat. Rotten feet staggered through the glowing embers of last night’s fire without so much as a hint they felt the burning. One kicked at a discarded whisky bottle. I turned and saw Stewart press his face up against the window of his caravan while a hoard of zombies pounded against it from this side. Too many for him to battle through on his own. ‘Stewart,’ I said. ‘We have to get him out of there!’
‘We need to close the fence first,’ said Sean. ‘Stop any more zombies getting –’ Sean didn’t finish. At that moment we all heard a roar as a group of about ten HZs sprinted through the fence. More than half of them carried an assortment of weapons, from knifes to hammers and axes. ‘Shiiiiiit!’
The HZs tore fearlessly through the zombies, shoving them out of the way to get to us as though they didn’t recognise the threat the zombies posed them. Some of the zombies turned their attention onto the HZs, but the force with which they burst into our camp made the HZs tricky buggers to get hold of.
‘Misfit, come with me to get Stewart. The rest of you hold that lot off,’ I said and I edged into the hoard, towards Stewart’s caravan.
I grunted as I stabbed zombie heads, my blade moving rapidly – in and out – no time to think, or else I’d get swamped. More zombies turned and peeled away from the caravan to stagger towards me and Misfit. They were greeted with a blade between the eyes. With the bulk of the zombies thinned out, the caravan door swung open and Stewart emerged, guitar slung across his back and Samurai sword held in front of his body. He swung the sword from his left to his right, taking the tops of the heads off a few zombies before stepping down onto the patchy grass.
‘Come on,’ I called to Stewart.
‘I’m coming, pudding,’ he said as he sliced his way through the few remaining zombies between him and us, while I turned back to the others. Clay, Sean, Kay and Charlotte held back HZs and zombies alike, but one of the HZs burst through and launched itself at me. I raised my knife, but Stewart sprang forwards and as the HZ landed, its chest met with the sword blade. The smirk on its face fell as Stewart swiped the sword upwards at an angle, slicing open the HZ’s torso as it sagged to the ground.
Me, Stewart and Misfit joined the others, forming a strong line of defence, each of us inching forwards with every slain zombie or HZ, intending to drive them out of the camp. I saw an HZ knock Charlotte onto her back. It dived on top of her and pinned her to the ground by her wrists. Charlotte wedged a leg between her and the HZ and kicked it off, springing to her feet, ready for it to come back at her. But the HZ fell into the ragged arms of the zombies behind it. One of them tore into the skin of the HZ’s neck, causing it to howl with pain. The HZ used its hammer to brain the zombie but, as it did so, another zombie bit into its arm. More zombies joined in and the HZ was overwhelmed, its hammer falling from its grasp as zombies devoured its flesh. Its inhuman cries rang out into the early morning air, and I heard it replied by a distant howl. More HZs were coming.
‘The fence panel,’ I shouted. ‘We need to get it closed. NOW!’
Sean and Stewart both ploughed forwards towards the fence, slashing out at the HZs and zombies in their path, while moving quickly and nimbly in order to avoid the festering hands that grabbed for them. I followed, intending to keep the attackers back so Sean and Stewart could concentrate on getting the panel closed. When we reached the panel I saw the chain the padlock fit into had been cut.
The sound of pounding feet and spine chilling howls preceded a group of seven HZs before they came into view from around the corner of the track, up from the main road. Sean swung the fence panel shut to block them but he hadn’t had time to lift the panel up and into the breeze block that usually secured its foot. He pushed against the panel as HZs began pounding it from the other side. Stewart helped him, leaning his right shoulder against the metal.
I dived for the padlock, ignoring the useless severed chain and, with annoyingly clumsy fingers, I tried to thread the padlock directly through the bars of the fence panel. It would be tight, but I thought it would work. As the HZs pounded on the fence, the padlock jumped out of my fingers and fell to the ground. I picked it up, glancing over my shoulder, back into camp. Zombies and two HZs surged towards us from that direction. ‘Stewart,’ I called. Stewart turned and held his sword out in front of his body, ready to defend me and Sean from that side.
I rammed the loop of the padlock back through the fence, but without Stewart’s weight against it, the panel shoved inwards from the force of the HZs on the other side, and the padlock fell to the ground. Sean pushed back with everything he had but an HZ used its knife to stab through the fence and into Sean’s right palm. Sean growled with pain but, with gritted teeth, refused to let go as blood trickled down the bars. I had the padlock back through the bars again, when another HZ smashed its hammer into Sean’s bloody fingers. This time Sean instinctively let go of the fence and the panel flung inwards. The force knocked me onto my back, and sent Sean flying. He crashed into the passenger door of the Mazda, parked up at the side to the right of the fence.
The fresh wave of HZs poured into camp, the force of their attack scattering the line of defence Kay, Clay, Misfit and Charlotte had formed about halfway down the camp. The four of them battled on regardless, doing their best to shunt the fight forwards, to drive the gatecrashers out.
One of the new HZs launched itself at Stewart’s back, knocking him to the ground on his stomach, just a couple of metres from where I had landed. His sword slipped from his grasp and with the HZ straddling his thighs, he couldn’t move forwards to get it. I scrabbled to my feet. But before I could get to Stewart, an HZ dived into me, throwing me off my feet again and onto my back, winding me. The HZ sat on my stomach. I raised my knife, ready to drive the blade into its head, but the HZ grabbed my wrist in both its filthy, blood encrusted hands and pinned it back against the damp earth. With its weight across the front of my body, holding me down, it pounded my wrist against the ground, trying to shake the knife from my grasp.
As I fought to cling onto my knife, I glanced to the right to see Stewart had pulled his guitar off his back and had managed to turn his body so he faced the HZ that straddled his thighs. The HZ ripped open Stewart’s shirt and, with its sharpened fingernails, it sliced open the soft flesh of Stewart’s belly. At the same moment Stewart swung his guitar forwards and slammed it into the HZ’s head. The wood smashed and splintered on contact. The HZ, unaffected by the blow, laughed – a shrill, sickening sound – and lowered its head to Stewart’s bloody stomach, fixing itself onto his flesh. Stewart cried out and punched the HZ in the side of its head in an effort to dislodge it.