When I reached the door, I peered inside. The lights were off so I couldn’t see much but there was definitely movement inside; a furtive shambling in the shadows.
I swung the bat at the glass and created a spiderweb of cracks. A second swing shattered the panel and it crashed to the ground.
When the zombies inside came out of the darkness and lurched towards the door, I realised just how many of them there were. A foul stench preceded them and I gagged against it. They’d been shut up in this building for God knew how long and the air was fetid.
“Come on!” Tanya shouted from the Land Rover.
I didn’t need telling twice. I sprinted for the vehicle and climbed inside as the first nasties made their way through the shattered door and into the car park. They detected the noise of our cars and staggered towards us. Behind them, more of the undead stepped into the daylight.
“Jesus, how many of them are there?” Tanya asked.
“At least a hundred, I think.”
She floored the accelerator and sped toward the edge of the car park before mounting the grass verge that led to the fence. We crashed through the wooden barricade and bounced along the rutted field, followed by Sam.
Behind us, more zombies poured out of the building and flooded the car park like a river of rotting flesh. The soldiers in the pursuing vehicles were going to have a hard time getting past them and hopefully by then we’d be long gone.
The ride across the field was rough and when we got to the other side, we discovered a long hedge.
“The road is on the other side,” I told Tanya.
She steered us towards the hedge and put her foot down. “Hold on.”
We hit the hedge and ripped through it, hitting a narrow road on the other side. Tanya spun the steering wheel to the right and headed north. Sam missed the hole we’d created in the hedge and made his own, ending up on the road behind us. I turned in my seat to make sure he was okay and saw him grinning like the cat that got the cream. This was the kind of thing Sam lived for.
We drove along the road for twenty minutes before I saw a farmhouse on the left. I pointed it out to Tanya. “Could be a suitable vehicle there.”
She nodded. “Let’s take a look.”
We had to find a vehicle soon or we’d be caught by the military. No matter how long we delayed them, if these Land Rovers had trackers fitted, they’d always be able to find us eventually.
The route to the farm consisted of a narrow dirt road with fields on either side. As we drove along it, I scanned the house ahead looking for signs of danger.
The place looked deathly quiet.
As well as the house, there was a barn and a row of outbuildings that looked like they might have once served as stables. Tanya parked in front of the house and we both got out. Sam came to a stop behind us and joined us. He was carrying his M16, as was Tanya. I had my Walther in one hand and the bat in the other.
“Looks quiet,” Sam said.
We all knew that silence could be deceiving. Without any external stimuli, such as sound or movement, the zombies went into a state of dormancy and didn’t move until they heard or saw prey. There could be a hundred of them in the area just waiting to detect movement.
The house’s front door consisted of wood that had been painted bright yellow and a curtained glass panel. I noticed that the windows were also curtained.
There was no way of knowing if anyone—or anything—was inside and that wasn’t our priority right now anyway because parked around the back of the house was a denim blue-coloured Volvo XC90. The seven-seater SUV had more than enough room to carry the crate that currently housed Patient Zero.
Same went over to the vehicle and looked in through the windows. “The keys are inside. Looks like someone left in a hurry and left it behind.”
“Or they’re still in the house,” I said.
“Could be. As long as they don’t come out, I don’t really care. Let’s get this baby loaded up.” He slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine. After checking the gauges, he grinned. “More than enough fuel to get us to the boats.”
“Okay, let’s get everything onboard,” Tanya said. “We’re going to have to fold the rear seats down to get Vess in and someone’s going to have to ride in the back with him.”
“That someone is you, Alex,” Sam said.
I let out a sigh. “Fine.” I didn’t really mind riding in the back but it might have been nice to have a democratic decision about it rather than me just being told what to do.
Tanya and I pulled the six foot long crate from the back of the Land Rover and, taking an end each, manoeuvred it to the Volvo while Sam folded the rear seats down. We slid the crate into the cargo area and I climbed in beside it.
Sam brought the footlocker over and placed it by my feet. Then he climbed behind the wheel and we set off back along the dirt track.
“That was easy enough,” Tanya said from the passenger seat. She was consulting the map, which she’d unfolded and propped against the dashboard.
“We aren’t out of the woods yet,” I reminded her. “Those soldiers will be heading this way.”
“Relax, man, we’ll be long gone,” Sam said.
“Take a left at the bottom of the track,” Tanya told him. “We’ll head north for a while before finding another road that will take us back down south to the boats.”
I leaned back against the metal crate and relaxed a little. The military vehicles would reach the farm soon but the soldiers would find the Land Rovers empty and they’d have no clue as to which direction we’d gone.
As soon as we got back to the boats, we could sail out into deeper water while we figured out where the hell Bunker 53 was located.
I opened the footlocker and checked out its contents. As Sam had said, it was filled with papers and journals. Somewhere in here, we’d hopefully find a piece of information that would tell us where we could find the bunker.
I hoped it wasn’t too far away because I wanted to get rid of Patient Zero as soon as possible.
The more I thought about it, the more I realised that Sam had probably been right about Vess after all.
The virus was probably bringing him back to life.
7
We got back to the village an hour and a half later. Using the map, Tanya had taken us on a circuitous route to make sure our pursuers wouldn’t chance upon us and that tactic had worked; we hadn’t seen the military vehicles again since leaving the motorway.
As we drove down to the harbour, I felt a sense of relief when I saw the Big Easy and the Lucky Escape anchored just off shore. I couldn’t see Lucy on deck but knew she was somewhere on the boat, probably waiting to tell us off for taking so long. I didn’t mind; we’d made it back alive and that was all that really mattered.
Sam drove the Volvo onto the jetty and parked it right next to the Zodiac. Then the three of us loaded the crate and footlocker into the inflatable, along with the weapons. Unfortunately, with the items on board, there wasn’t enough room for all of us to get into the small boat.
“Someone’s going to have to wait here,” Sam said.
I got into the Zodiac. “Well it isn’t going to be me.” I folded my arms and kind of felt like a petulant child having a tantrum but I’d had enough of always being the member of the group who had to take the less-palatable option and I was desperate to get back on board the Big Easy.
Sam laughed. “No problem, dude. You don’t have to have a fit about it. I’ll stay.”
“Great,” Tanya said, getting into the Zodiac and throwing Sam his M16 before starting the outboard motor. “I’ll come back to get you in a bit.”
“No worries.” Sam climbed up onto the Volvo’s bonnet and lay back with his hands behind his head. He closed his eyes and said, “I’ll be here catching some rays.”