Zombie Castle Series (Book 3): ZC Three Page 5

  With the barricade of cars back in place, we dismounted from the vehicles and began unloading what we’d scavenged.

  We were still forty-three and a dog, but we now had an extra vehicle.

  Chapter seven

  With everyone helping, apart from the lookout in the steeple, we soon had the materials unloaded from the vehicles. Stacking it all into similar piles to enable us work out what we had, we began.

  Dave had continued weapons training while we’d been gone and when we told him our suspicions that we might soon get more unwelcome visitors, he immediately saw the opportunity to take their training to the next level.

  They were ready to start learning patrol skills, and the chance to combine that with some live firing at what we reckoned would only be a small number of the undead, was perfect timing.

  He called a quick meeting to decide who was going to do what. He wanted to take one large patrol out consisting of all the new arrivals, with the exception of Bob, the policeman and Dave, the villager we’d first seen in the tower, who both claimed to have some mechanical know-how, making them useful to help in adapting the vehicles. He included a few more ‘experienced’ ones, just in case.

  Gathering nervously together, they listened as Dave and Simon gave them their last few instructions before they left the safety of the churchyard. All holding either an assault rifle or a shotgun with bags containing extra magazines or cartridges over their shoulder, they set off. The knights looked out of place as they held their shields and chosen weapons in their hands, but now with the addition of a modern weapon slung over their shoulders.

  Dave told me he’d thought about getting some of them to bring their crossbows, so he could see for himself how effective they would be, but the need for them to gain experience in handling the weapons from this century overrode his curiosity.

  Wincing at the noise the generator made when it started, I looked up at the steeple where I could see the children taking their roles as lookouts seriously. They all stood looking through binoculars, ready to warn us at the first sight of anything untoward. The noise we would be making, cutting and drilling, would make us by far the noisiest target in the area and make us a Mecca for any wandering ghouls.

  I couldn’t dwell on it, though. We had a task to complete and limited time to get it done. I had to trust others to do their jobs. The children had radios with them to communicate with both Simon and Dave, who were leading the patrol, and with us. Dave, ever the planner, had given them a rough plan of the village and instructions on how to read it so they could, via the radios, direct them to any sightings. Most of us in the churchyard had pistols in holsters around our waist and our main guns close to hand to protect the perimeter if need be. All in all, we were in good shape.

  The churchyard filled with the sound of screeching metal and power tools as we cut, drilled, bolted and welded the framework to the vehicles. It didn’t have to be neat, it just needed to be strong enough to do the job and with the experience we’d already gained, progress was swift.

  Starting on the bus first, a team constructed the supports for the wedge at the front, while others stripped some seats out from the inside and removed some of the windows to make areas to stand and fight.

  One problem we encountered was that we had more jobs to do and people able to use them than power tools available. Work was stopping as people had to wait for others to finish using a certain tool, which was laying idle by their side most of the time when they put it down to fix a bolt or get more material to carry on.

  Calling a halt, I reorganised how we worked. One person, who was the most competent in using a particular tool, was allocated it full time. He or she would then go where they were needed and cut or drill or weld for another person and then move on to the next who needed their help. Others I allocated to rotate around the group and help where necessary, either by holding something while bolts were fitted, or by fetching anything needed.

  The improvement was immediate and after a bit of shuffling around as people found the role that best suited them, the pace of work really picked up. Soon metal panels, which I was reliably informed were mobile sheep hurdles, were fixed over all the windows, an escape hatch had been cut in the roof and a ladder fixed for access to it, The wedge was taking shape and looked as sturdy, if not more so, than the ones we’d previously constructed.

  When what I considered the basics were complete, I moved some teams over to start work on the van. The plan was to complete the bare minimum i.e. the wedge at the front, window protection and an escape hatch to all the vehicles and then, if time and materials permitted, to return to them and do whatever else we could think of to improve them.

  The radio clipped to my belt emitted a loud bleeping to indicate someone wanted to talk. The noise we were making made it impossible to hear anything, so I walked to the other side of the church yard.

  It was Dave, updating us on their progress.

  They’d patrolled the whole village, slowly working their way out from the centre in widening circles, practising drills and manoeuvres as they went along. They had encountered the occasional zombie, usually trapped in a house or car and they’d all had gained real life experience in killing them.

  He reported finding plenty of food supplies in most of the houses they’d entered, so that would make it worthwhile planning another trip if time permitted. The idea was worth considering. We had sufficient food now, but there were a lot of us to feed. The plentiful availability of food we had already discussed. The whole country had fallen so quickly to the virus that we knew there should be a lifetime of tinned and preserved foods available from not just households, but supermarkets and the warehouses that supplied them daily. We’d already raided one of the hundreds, if not thousands of lorries transporting all those goods around the country. Finding enough to eat was one of our lesser concerns, but as Shawn had kept repeating his preppers’ mantra from the first time we’d met him: ‘If it’s there, take it.’

  If we had the time, and could do it without risk, it was an option worth considering.

  They’d found a few pushbikes and he’d send Jim, the Marine, and Noel, the young barman, to scout further afield to see if they could locate the zombies we suspected were heading our way. They had identified a good ambush location on the village outskirts where the road ran between two solid walls, and they were busy training the new recruits on how to reinforce and construct firing positions.

  Jim and Noel had been told that if they found them, to lead them to the trap they were busy preparing.

  He ended by promising to inform us that they were going to open fire if they appeared, so we wouldn’t be alarmed by the sound of guns firing.

  The Land Rover with its simple construction and rugged build made it the easiest to convert. Once a few body panels were removed, revealing the chassis, it was a simple job to fix extra supports to it.

  I think the boys had got a little more excited about working on the Defender than the other vehicles and the preliminary design that Shawn was working on would turn it into a fully armoured car, completely encased in mesh panels with a mount for a machine gun.

  He was struggling with how to design, build and mount a fully rotatable cupola on the roof, though. I attempted to steer the excitable, chatting group as they stood staring at the problem, back onto a more sensible course, but got drawn into the discussion and soon began chipping in with my own ideas.

  It took a stern warning from Becky, who had noticed the lack of work going on, to drag us back to the here and now and remind us we still had the basics to complete.

  The sound of cutting and drilling and sawing filled the air again. Dave transmitted over the radio that the zombies were in sight, not in numbers to worry about and the firing would begin soon.

  The first shots made us stop and listen. The cracks of single rifle shots and the booms of shotguns sounded controlled and not panicked, indicating that Dave and Simon had the situation under control. With complete faith in them, we con
tinued working.

  Ten minutes later, Dave reported that they had eliminated them all and were on their way back and reported an ETA of fifteen minutes.

  I looked at my watch. It had just passed midday and we had achieved so much already. Okay, we’d been up and about since sunrise at about five am, so we’d already worked a virtual full day, but still, it once again showed what teamwork and cooperation could achieve.

  Stanley’s excited voice crackled through the radio, telling us that the patrol was in sight.

  “Come on, everyone,” I said, “Lets open the barricade and welcome them back, I think we deserve a breather for a few minutes.”

  I turned the generator off and once the ones on patrol had made their weapons safe under the watchful eye of Simon and Dave, and leant them up against the side of the church, they joined us in the shade cast by its high walls, grabbing bottles of water from a few boxes a thoughtful person had got from the church.

  As everyone sat, Simon and Dave remained standing and walked into the centre of the circle the group had naturally formed.

  “Well done, guys.” Simon began, “let’s spend a few minutes on an informal after-action report. As far as I’m concerned, you all did great for first timers. You all maintained good gun safety generally.”

  He looked at the Vicar.

  “Even you, Vicar, got the hand of not pointing the dangerous end at anyone eventually.”

  The vicar smiled and everyone who’d been on the patrol chuckled.

  “Thank you, Simon. I forgive you for the profanities you kept shouting at me to remind me, but next time can you keep the good Lord out of it, please?”

  “Deal, Vicar. Unless, of course, you decide to point a rifle at me again when I don’t not know if it’s loaded, or if there’s a round in the chamber, or whether the safety might be on or off. Things like that make me forget about being nice. And trust me, Vicar, I was being nice to you earlier.”

  He waited for the sniggering to subside.

  “Anyway. Let’s put that aside. You cannot expect to get it right all the time. That’s what training is for, so it becomes second nature to you. The bollocking I gave the Vicar was for the benefit of all of you. Trust me, you will all make that mistake and my job is to minimise that and to keep you all safe. He was just the first one I spotted doing it. As for the rest of the patrol: good job. You listened, you never got sloppy and you never hesitated when killing the few we found here and there.

  “Marksmanship is something that will come with time. That was the first time most of you have fired a gun and the proof is, you got them all. Neither Dave, nor I or any other of the more experienced shots, fired our weapons in support when they approached. I’m sure you’ll be called upon to use your weapons again soon, and the next time you’ll find it easier and your accuracy will improve. Overall, well done, now take ten minutes and then go and strip and clean your weapons as we’ve shown you.”

  We were still forty-three and a dog, but a more confident forty-three. As for the dog, he was yet to wake up and was lying in the shade of a tree.

  Chapter eight

  Refreshed from the short break, we continued working on the vehicles, determined to get the work done before the end of the day, which would enable us to leave the following morning.

  With many more willing hands, the pace of the work picked up even more.

  The children were released from lookout duty in the spire and were allowed to run around the churchyard to get rid of their pent-up energy. Horace, the labrador, briefly roused himself to join in with a game of football until apparent exhaustion once again drove him back to the shade of the nearest tree to recover.

  Simon spent some time admiring the work that had been done so far to what he was calling ‘his’ Defender, before sitting down with Shawn and a variety of fittings and clamps we’d scavenged from the farmers’ supply shop to try and make a mount for the light machine guns.

  By late afternoon we were the proud owners of five heavily armoured zombie-proof vehicles. A few of us were still working on them, because improvements could always be made and as we had so much material available, it seemed a shame not to use it. The rest of the group, organised by Becky and a few other women, changed focus to loading the vehicles for the journey tomorrow and deciding who would travel in what vehicle.

  We reckoned the trailer, with its impregnable high sides, was still the safest transport we had. It was the obvious place for the most precious and vulnerable of the group to travel. Obviously that group was the children, overseen by Maud, and Nicky, who we now knew was pregnant.

  The two vehicles that were the easiest to exit from, were the bus and now also, following Shawn’s alterations, the trailer. The knights would be split between these two vehicles with the plan forming that they would be the first to ‘put feet on the ground’, as it were, and protected by their armour and weapons and the rest of us with guns, create a perimeter to enable others to disembark.

  The bus looked formidable. It would provide more comfortable transport for a lot of people and still be able to transport a large quantity of supplies. It had a wedge at the front and back and was surrounded by steel sheeting.

  We had decided to only fix a wedge to the front of the van. It would carry a portion of our supplies but would have space for more should we find any. Leaving easy access to the rear by not fixing a rear wedge would enable it to be loaded quickly.

  Even though the work done to the Land Rover was roughly the same as my Volvo, it just looked a lot cooler. Even though I did try to remain loyal to my trusty Volvo, I did find myself casting an occasional envious glance in its direction.

  Shawn and his friends loved it. As preppers, they told us they’d given a lot of thought and discussion time to what would make the best Bug Out Vehicle, or BOV. A Land Rover was always top of their list and they often admired pictures others posted on forum sites showing off their own vehicle.

  They assured us that any of our vehicles, but especially the Land Rover, would be the centre of attention at any preppers’ convention or meet. The fact that we could now ignore any laws or regulations governing the condition of vehicles allowed on UK roads helped.

  On a normal day, if we tried to drive any of our vehicles on the roads, we would find ourselves quickly in trouble with the police.

  Now the only things trying to stop us would be the undead.

  Bob and Dave had yet to go on patrol as they had been helping with the vehicles, so Simon took them out, along with a few others, to give them some experience. Shawn insisted on joining them, saying he hadn’t had a chance to try fighting any zombies, wearing his armour yet, and he wanted to get used to the feel of it again.

  Much to his friend’s amusement, which they tried very badly to hide, Louise helped Shawn on with his armour. He spent time explaining what each piece was called and how it should be buckled and stood there as she reached around him attaching them.

  Ian couldn’t contain himself anymore and walked over holding an item in his hand. He got her attention and handed it to her.

  “Louise, I don’t think he had one of these in his kit bag. It’s very important that he wears it, we all do when we’re fighting.”

  She looked at what he’d handed her. It was a cricket box. (A shaped plastic cup, edged in padded leather, designed to protect your private parts when batting in cricket). Handing it back, she kept a straight face saying,

  “Oh, don’t worry, Ian, I’ve already made sure his is in the right place.”

  She held it in two fingers and extended her arm to let it dangle in front of Ian’s nose.

  “Anyway, this must be yours because it’s far smaller than the one Shawn has. I can’t imagine it’d fit anyone else either, so you may as well have it back.”

  Completely beaten again and with nowhere to go from such a good put-down, all he could do was accept the dangling box and walk back to his mates, enduring the laughter of them and everyone else who’d heard the exchange.

  Simon
handed out rucksacks to all who were going on the patrol, explaining that they might as well use the opportunity to gather more supplies. On the previous patrol they’d discovered many full cupboards, therefore the patrol would fulfil two aims: to further everyone’s training and to gather extra food that was just sitting there waiting to be scavenged.

  The lookout in the Spire reported seeing a few more zombies approaching. We were the noisiest thing around and as long as we remained so, they would always be attracted to us.

  Once they were ready, the patrol, after a last equipment check and briefing reminding them about the need for safety and to be constantly alert, scrambled over the church wall and walked across the village green in the direction the zombies were reported to be approaching from.

  Soon, the occasional flurry of shots reminded us that danger was never far away.

  By the time they returned an hour later, each carrying a bulging rucksack, the vehicles were all loaded, and their contents secured against shifting during the journey. We were ready to go as soon as dawn broke the following morning.

  Simon and Dave organised a whole community drill, so people would know what to expect when on the road.

  Everyone boarded their allocated vehicles and once the vehicles were full of passengers, it became obvious that some of the contents would need to be shifted around. We practised a few scenarios until we were satisfied we had the best configuration of people and supplies.

  We then had everyone practise using the spears and hand weapons to fight imaginary zombies surrounding the vehicles. This highlighted a few minor improvements that would make it easier for the ones on the bus to fight.

  The knights then trained on exiting the trailer and bus as effectively as possible.

  The bus proved simple. Holding their shields ready, once the door was opened and the metal gate reinforcing them swung back on its hinges, they could exit the bus two at a time and create a shield wall, holding back any threats as more exited from behind to support them. After a few attempts and changes to the tactics, they’d worked out the best way to do it.