Zombie Castle Series (Book 3): ZC Three Read online

  Blinking in the bright sunlight, the inhabitants of the church filed out to meet us.

  We now numbered forty-three and a dog.

  Chapter four

  The last few visible zombies had now been killed by the knights and they were walking towards the church.

  “It’s great to meet you,” I said to the group from the church. “I’m Tom. If we can first of all get the cars back over the entrance, we can all meet properly then.”

  One of them stepped forward.

  “Yes, absolutely. I’m Jim and I’ll introduce the rest later, but you’re right. Let’s secure the place.”

  He then turned to Ian and chuckled.

  “Bloody hell, mate, I know you said you’d try to come back, and I was really hoping you would, but never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine this. You lot have really got your shit together.”

  Then I noticed the two we’d picked up earlier. They were standing slightly separate from everyone else and still looked in shock from all that had happened to them today. In all the excitement of reaching the church and now that the group had grown so large, they had inadvertently been forgotten. I walked over to them to rectify our mistake as the rest walked down to the entrance gates.

  “Hi, I’m Tom,” I said, holding out my hand. “Sorry about not including you then, it’s all a bit crazy at the moment, as you can imagine.”

  They both shook my hand and the woman spoke.

  “Oh, it’s okay. I’m Nicky and this is my husband Chris. We’re just trying to take it all in. We thought we were done for until we heard and then saw you drive past. I can’t describe the relief we felt when you stopped and came to rescue us, we just can’t thank you enough. The guys on the bus have filled us in a bit on what you’ve been up to and it all sounds incredible.”

  “I know what you mean. When we tell the story ourselves, we can hardly believe it, but here we are. Anyway, if you want to come and help us move those cars back, we can get a brew on and get to know each other better.”

  They agreed, and we walked down to help the others.

  Twenty minutes later, when we were all satisfied that the churchyard was secure again, we helped Maud and the children down from the trailer and trooped into the cool interior of the church.

  The church looked very organised. A cooking area had been set up and the pews arranged to make a large communal seating area. One wall was lined with what looked like a sleeping area, with areas divided by blankets hanging off ropes to provide an element of privacy.

  The church was everything they’d told me it would be. It provided a safe and secure refuge, with the bonus that the perimeter wall should keep all but a huge mass of the undead out.

  As everyone sat down on the pews, I did notice that the three different groups, us, the knights and the church occupants, sat together. At first, the two new additions looked unsure where to sit, before sitting near to Marc, who had been driving the bus. I was sure a psychologist would see it as an interesting study on society and the bonds that people formed even after a short time together. Tribal could be another way to describe it. The three separate groups had worked together to survive and so the bonds they felt would be stronger than feelings towards the other groups.

  Shawn was the exception. He had the recent emotional contact with us, but also a strong, much longer-term emotional attachment to the friends he had lived with for years.

  He did choose, though, to sit with our group next to Louise, who he had spent the last few days in the tractor cab with.

  I wasn’t sure what the intentions of the church group were yet, but as Shawn’s friends were joining us on our journey, the two groups would quickly and easily merge into one strong unit; our survival depended on it.

  The vicar had remained standing as we all sat down, and he took the lead now. He walked into the centre of the seating area and the chatter that had begun died down. He spread his arms in a universal welcoming gesture.

  “Welcome, everyone. I can’t say how much pleasure it gives me to welcome old friends and new to the sanctuary my church has become.”

  He turned to the group of knights.

  “Without your help, I doubt any of us would have survived and now you’ve brought many new friends and some amazing looking vehicles. I’m desperate to know your story, just as I’m sure everyone else must be. But first, let us offer you some refreshments and food to officially welcome you.”

  With that, he went and shook our hands in turn and blessed everyone with the sign of the cross.

  Becky whispered to me,

  “I’ll go and see if they have enough supplies, it’s not fair to use theirs when we have so much.” I squeezed her hand and replied,

  “Good idea, love.” As Becky walked away, Dave called me over.

  “I think we need to set an OP up in the spire.” I looked quizzically at him.

  “Sorry. An Observation Post. I’ll ask that guy over there, I think he said his name was Jim. He’s one of the coppers, I believe, so I imagine he’s their security expert. One person on watch at a time should do it and now there are so many of us, the rota won’t be hard to organise. Do you think the children will be up for it too?”

  “Good idea, mate. I imagine they were doing it anyway. There was someone up there when we arrived, after all. Come on, let’s go and have a chat with him.”

  Jim told us what they’d been doing for the past few days. They had kept a constant watch from the tower. Until more of the undead had started to drift into the village, they’d managed to scavenge some more supplies from neighbouring houses. Erring on the side of caution, they’d then retreated to the church and kept as quiet as possible. This worked and most of the zombies had shambled away, just leaving the few that we’d dealt with when we arrived.

  Dave called to Jim, the Marine, and told him to grab a radio and go and take the first watch in the Spire, promising to send up some food and drink when it was ready.

  With a, “Yes, boss,” he picked up a radio and his weapon and after a quick comms check to make sure the radios were working, followed the other Jim, who showed him the way to the Spire.

  Becky had, with the help of a few others, unloaded some of our supplies from the trailer and was helping in the cooking area. The children had gathered in the area of the church that contained children’s books and games and were happily amusing themselves. They’d even taken baby Sarah off Maud and were playing with her on the carpet of the ‘play area’.

  Maud, never one to sit still or take a break, was bustling around, and was introducing herself to all the church occupants. The smile on her face was infectious and her bubbly spirit and personality were a tonic everyone seemed to enjoy.

  Again, I thought about how Maud had changed from the cowed, bullied woman who was unable to speak for herself when we first met her, to the woman she had become today. She was the matriarch of the group, constantly looking after the welfare of all of us, especially the children, and never afraid to put any of us in our place if we overstepped the invisible lines of behaviour she expected.

  Then I silently chuckled to myself. It wasn’t surprising really, seeing as her first act had been to hack her bullying, cowardly worm of a husband to death with a hand axe when he had tried to push her in the way of an approaching zombie horde to save himself, telling her she must die to save him.

  Soon everyone had a bowl of food and a hot drink in their hands and we all began retelling our stories, with others chipping in if they thought something had been missed. The laughter and tears that we all shed at various parts of each other’s stories bound the groups together more as the experiences of each group were now the shared experiences of the whole group.

  Chris and Nicky’s story was one none of us had heard yet, so once they had listened, laughed and cried at all our exploits, everyone quietened down to hear their tale.

  The main news was that Nicky was pregnant and that was what most likely saved their lives. They both worked in Bristol. Chris was a mana
ger at a local Builders’ merchant and Nicky was a corporate lawyer based at the Bristol office of a national firm, and they had taken the day off work to go to the hospital for the first scan of their unborn child.

  The appointment wasn’t until midday, so they had an easy morning pottering around the house and spending time together, excitedly biding the time until they could see an image of their first child. They hadn’t listened to the news or radio, so they had no idea what was going on until they tried to leave their road. The lack of traffic and the abandoned cars littering the road immediately made them realise that something was seriously amiss, but nothing was going to stop them getting to the hospital, so they continued with their journey.

  It wasn’t until Nicky turned the radio on in the car that they both heard the government issued message. They stopped and tried to work out if it was some elaborate hoax and they’d suddenly see TV cameras and a presenter shouting, “Gotcha!” as he shoved a microphone in their faces, or if it was true.

  Even when a blood and gore covered thing approached the car and started clawing at its windows, they discussed calmly whether it was real or a very good make-up job. It was only when another approached, whose both arms were bloody stumps, and it began banging its head against a window, breaking all of its teeth in the effort, that they came to the panicked realisation that it must all impossibly be true.

  Chris slammed the car into reverse, smashing into a few cars in his terrified efforts to escape, and they tried to make it back to the safest place they could think of. Their home.

  Driving as fast as he could, they swerved through the streets, dodging cars and zombies apparently in greater numbers now that the secret was out. They almost made it until they were stopped by a horde blocking the way ahead.

  With more coming from behind them, they had no choice but to abandon their car and run for it, dodging through gardens and alleyways until they reached their house, just closing the front door before the ones that had appeared in their road reached them.

  As the crowd gathered outside, they realised that escape was impossible, so all they could do was barricade themselves in and wait. Hoping that they might get the chance to escape at some point, they filled rucksacks with as many useful supplies as they could, worked out what items they had round the house would be the best weapon, and tried to eke out their food supplies for as long as they could.

  Day after day, though, the zombies gathered at the front of their house did not disperse but worse still, more arrived. Chris and Nicky had almost resigned themselves to never escaping, and facing the agony of starving to death in their own house, made worse by the knowledge that they would never see their unborn child and it would die with them, when the convoy had spotted and rescued them.

  As soon as they had finished their tale, the women rushed to Nicky to congratulate her on being pregnant, and noisily began discussing the best care plan, so they could keep her and her unborn child as safe and well as possible.

  Escaping from the women, Chris walked over to me.

  “Congratulations, mate,” I said, shaking his hand. “I think your wife will be the best cared for lady in this world we’re living in.” Laughing as I thought of it, I added.

  “I’ve just realised, you lucky bastard. Whatever happens, you’re going to be guaranteed the comfiest bed available every night. No one’s going to let a pregnant woman sleep on the floor if there’s a bed available.”

  Ian whispered theatrically to Shawn and nodded over in Louise’s direction

  “Mate, if you get your new girlfriend preggers, don’t worry I’ll let her share my bed. You can sleep on the floor while I look after her. Anyway, you haven’t told us what’s going on yet. You bugger off, leaving us to get on with it on our own and then eventually turn up with a really hot woman, who is way out of your league, by the way. Then you don’t come and sit with us, your mates, who’ve looked after you for years but sit cuddling up next to her.”

  Ian stood back, folded his arms and waited for an answer.

  Shawn went bright red with embarrassment and stammered his reply.

  “She’s not my girlfriend. It’s not like that. We’re just friends, that’s all. She’d just lost her sister and I just wanted to be there to help her.”

  His friends stood around him, waiting for him to continue. But he didn’t, he just stood there looking for a way to escape.

  Ian grabbed him in a bear hug, lifted him up and shouted.

  “Bugger me, boys, he’s actually fallen in love.”

  Then he spun him around while Shawn tried to get him in a headlock and cover his mouth as he chanted like a child, “Shawn’s in love!” over and over.

  All the men found this infantile display very funny and laughed at the embarrassment it was obviously causing.

  Glancing over at Louise, I could see she’d also gone bright red and was trying to hide her embarrassment too ‒ and the big smile that had spread across her face.

  Maybe Ian was right. It took a sharp shout from Maud to stop the merriment.

  “Ian! Do I have to keep telling you to behave? You may have got away with this behaviour before and think you can get away with again it, because you are a big cuddly bear of a man with a permanent stupid grin on his face.

  Sarah is sleeping and if you have woken her with your stupid goings on, there will be hell to pay.”

  Instantly contrite, it was his turn to go red with embarrassment as he gently put Shawn down and muttered

  “Sorry, Maud.”

  “And so you should be. Now go over and wash those dishes. They won’t do themselves, will they?”

  Once again Maud had got it spot on. The men, trying to stifle the laughter that wanted to erupt from our throats, watched as Ian dejectedly shuffled off and began washing the dishes like a severely scolded five-year-old.

  He’d finally met his match in a sixty-year-old diminutive woman who looked as if she wouldn’t say boo to a goose.

  We knew differently.

  We were still forty-three and a dog.

  Chapter five

  We needed to get down to business and plan what our next move would be. Dave, Jim and I got everyone to gather at the seating area so we could begin.

  I spoke first.

  “You all know of our plan to head to Warwick Castle and I still think we should stick to that goal. Unless anyone else has a better idea?”

  No one indicated they did, so I continued.

  “Of course,” I said, looking at our newest arrivals, “you’re all welcome to come with us, unless you prefer to stay here or have somewhere else you want to try to reach. But from what we’ve seen out there and with what goodies we’ve gathered so far, my firm belief is that your best and safest option will be to join us, so we can work together to survive all this shit that’s going on around us.”

  No one spoke up, but I could tell from the looks on their faces that they knew joining us was the best option to ensure their survival.

  “What we need to do now is plan the next few days. The main priority is, I imagine, working our magic on the bus and the van. We know what we’ve done to the other vehicles works, so if a few of you can get thinking about those, that would be great. You locals can help with that, because you might know the best place where we can get the stuff we need.

  Remember, we’re still going to try and see if Louise’s family in Cheltenham made it. From here, it’s not far to them at all, and also, let’s not forget Steve’s family in Worcester. Time is of the essence for both those tasks, so whatever we do, we need to get on with it.

  “If anyone else has people they want to check on, tell us now so we can try and plan the route to them. No promises of course, but if we can, we will try.”

  I stopped and looked around.

  “Does anyone else have anything they want to add?”

  Simon Wood stood up.

  “Yes, mate. While you’re tinkering with the vehicles, I want to work on tactics for fighting them. I’ve seen the way the
knights fight, and its frikkin’ awesome. But I think that because we hope to try to rescue others on our way, we’ll most likely be doing close quarter work and house clearing. Warwick castle, when we get there, might also be overrun.

  We’re heavily trained in urban warfare, so it’s something the four Marines here are good at. But we need more than the four of us doing it. I think a couple of hours knocking our heads together will be a great help. Also, looking at the weapons you knights have, the rest of us are going to need something better than knives for close quarter work.”

  I nodded and looked around.

  “Great idea. If you can get on with that, we can rotate round jobs, so we can all have a go. The training you’ve given us so far has, as we know, enabled us to work well together, even though we are FNGs.”

  He nodded, smiling, and sat down. I could see from the few quizzical expressions I would have to explain what FNGs meant. Once the children were out of earshot, of course.

  The vicar was the next to stand.

  “Even though it will break my heart to leave my parish, I don’t think our future lies here. You have, as far as I am concerned, been sent here by God to be our guardian angels and my place is with you. I can’t speak for the rest of the villagers, but I imagine they feel the same. This church has provided us with safety and sanctuary, but for how long? I’ve visited Warwick Castle, so I know it could provide all we need.”

  Bob stood up and interrupted him.

  “I’m sorry for interrupting, Vicar, but I can speak for us all here and we all agree that we can’t stay here long term. We’d eventually run out of food, and with so few of us, we just haven’t got the strength to fight them off if we get surrounded again. Our best option is to leave with our new friends and survive this together.”

  “Thank you, Bob,” replied the vicar, who turned to face us again.

  “Well there’s your answer. I am not sure, apart from the two police officers, what skills we can offer, apart from a willingness to help, but thank you for allowing us to join you. Now, if you can tell us how we can help, we will do our utmost not to let you down.”