Now, it was silent and still. The doors were shut, and the curtains were closed. Someone had attempted to board up the shattered front door. One of the windows was broken; a torn curtain was caught on the broken glass. It was dark inside. She shivered. This felt weird. Creepy.
All the places they'd passed through up to now had been largely unfamiliar. The whole thing had had the feel of a very long, very bad dream. She'd been able to stay detached. Now, though, in this familiar place so close to home, reality hit her like a slow blow to the stomach. She felt physically sick.
"You ok?" Anita asked.
"Yeah, it's just so … you know …"
She was interrupted by movement ahead. An infected stumbled out of an alleyway on the left. It came from the same direction as the moaning and the clanging noise. Lisa stiffened, tightening her grip on her spear. The infected was lurching itself towards them.
They pulled their goggles down. When it was close enough, Lisa stepped towards it. In one swift move, she raised the spear and brought it down in a firm strike on the top of its skull. It dropped like a stone. As it fell, she held the spear fast and the blade slid out from the wound. A dark, viscous liquid dripped from its tip.
Another infected appeared from the same direction. This time, Anita stepped ahead drawing her axe from its sling. She barely missed a stride as she stopped it in its tracks with a single, solid strike.
A slow but steady stream of infected trickled out from the alley. The two women dealt with them calmly and efficiently, taking turns until the trickle stopped, and all was quiet again except for the metal clanging.
They were sweating and panting, their clothes and faces splattered with gore.
"Great idea about the goggles." Lisa wiped hers clean with her sleeve.
"We're definitely getting the hang of this." Anita surveyed the corpses that littered the street with an expression of grim satisfaction.
Lisa realised that she, too, felt strangely satisfied. What was wrong with her? It was confusing. She didn't want to think about it. What was that damned clanging, anyway?
She went into the alley. At its end, a metal gate was blowing in the wind.
She strode towards it, intent on silencing it.
Anita called out to her.
"Wait, Lisa! The noise is attracting them. It's our friend."
Lisa stopped and turned back. She patted Anita on the shoulder.
"Let's get out of here."
They made steady progress through the village and out towards the motorway. But they smelt and heard it before they saw it. The unmistakable odour of decaying flesh reached them first, followed a couple of hundred metres later by the sound of a multitude of moaning. They stopped and looked at the road ahead. It rose up towards a roundabout that sat above the motorway. The noise and smell was coming from below.
"Man!" Anita said.
"It's the M42. The Solihull Junction. The town centre is on the other side." Lisa gestured beyond the roundabout.
"Are you hearing this? There's got to be hundreds of them. The noise and the smell …" Anita was frowning and chewing her thumb nail. "I don't know … I really don't know."
Lisa tried to reassure her, "Let's just have a look first. Let's just see. We can come back"
"Oh, Jesus," Anita groaned. "What if …?"
"We can move faster than them. You know we can. Think about it. We can't give up now. We knew this was coming. We knew it could be bad."
"Yeah but not as bad as this! Seriously, Lisa! Have you lost your mind?"
"Come on. We can do it. You know we can. We're survivors, aren't we?"
"Oh, Jesus! Please, Jesus. Just a look then."
Lisa took Anita's hand and coaxed her up towards the roundabout.
The noise and the stench intensified the closer they got, and by the time they reached the top of the southbound entry slip-road, it was overwhelming. Both women had to cover their mouths and noses to stop themselves from retching and gagging.
They crouched behind some bushes to look down at the scene. It was utter carnage. A tangled mass of vehicles, a few still shiny and intact but most mangled or burnt out, stretched as far as they could see. Hundreds of infected wandered amongst the vehicles. Some writhed and twisted in their cars.
The end of the slip-road was blocked by a mini pile-up, effectively preventing any of the infected from leaving the main carriageway.
"See, they can't get up here," Lisa whispered.
"What about the other exits?"
"Wait here."
Lisa scuttled across the road towards the top of the exit slip-road on the other side. She dropped onto her belly and wriggled forward to get a better view.
She signalled a thumbs-down sign before belly-crawling back the way she'd come. She was breathless when she slipped back behind the cover of the bushes.
"That side's open," she panted. "They could come up there. Honestly, though, if we're quiet and careful, I think we can get over. They can't see us."
"Jesus! Let's do it then."
Keeping low, they inched their way forward on their hands and knees, pausing every few minutes, listening for any increase in noise or activity below.
It felt like more, but it took only ten minutes or so until they were safely past the slip-road and onto the main bridge. There, in a spot where they were completely out of sight, they took a break and stretched out their cramping limbs, before crouching again to crawl the remaining distance past the top of the exit slip-road.
Lisa was focused on the road ahead. It was empty. They were almost there. She could see the gardens of the first few
