There are way too many undead shuffling between the cars, on the embankments lining the side of the motorway, and writhing in the confines of trapped vehicles. Lines of traffic extend as far as the eye can see behind the mangled piles of cars on one side, and behind the truck barrier on the other side, then eerily there is just an empty stretch ahead of the accident extending into the distance. One final gridlock as a monument to the end of the world, captured for all time.
Far in the distance, the bright sky of the horizon was smeared with a dirty haze. Fires, Nate observed. So many fires, as Manchester burned. Looting, panic, accidents, gas explosions… who knows? Shit, I wonder how bad that haze was in the first few weeks of the world’s death throes? I’m glad we’re twenty-five miles from the edge of any city in our little rural and suburban areas here, surrounded by small towns, little villages, and big stretches of countryside. For those living in the cities, I can’t even imagine what kind of horrors they endured when everything started going to shit, and if anyone in the city is still alive. I hope so, as I’d like to think there will always be small pockets of resourceful people that keep their shit together when everything around them crumbles, but I can’t even get my head around the sheer scale of the undead numbers in the big cities.
Nate and I headed back to the pickup at that point, carrying the weight of desolation, but I felt like I needed to see it. I wish I hadn’t, but I’m also glad I did. We have to understand what it is we’ve lost, if we’re ever going to figure out how to build something new. Something better.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it in the future, and I’ll say it again now.
The apocalypse fucking sucks, man.
September 15th, 2010
FIELD TRIPS
Last few days we’ve been beyond the gate, gathering resources. They’ve been simple excursions to some local country houses and farms, staying clear of town and the hordes still wandering round there.
Why did we do this? Well, we brought Alicia and Mark along with us as part of Nate’s initial training plan. He’s been showing them proper handling of both shotgun and handgun, no live rounds fired yet, as he’s not going to upgrade them to one of our precious SA80’s until he’s satisfied they can handle the gateway weapons. These little field trips were to show them how Nate and I operate as a clearance team, as we don’t have a mock up to train them on, so doing it with single, contained environments is the next best thing, where we’re only likely to meet the maximum of a single family of undead.
We did give them the halligans, though. Before they move to firearms, they have to go through the crucible of braining undead in close quarters. If they’re going to become field ready, firearms are our last resort. If we can take them out quietly in melee first, we will, because there’s less chance of summoning any more zombies to the party. Also, we don’t know if we’ll ever get ammo resupply; this is sleepy northern England after all. We were lucky that Bancroft had a stash of illegal weapons, but we can’t count on ever finding any more. The nearest military base is near Chester, a good twenty or so miles from where we are, and that’s our last resort if we think we’re getting too low. It’s not a large base, more of a barracks to be truthful, but Nate assures me they’ll still have an armoury. Considering the travel we’d have to do to get there, however, it would be something of an odyssey into the unknown, so we’ll put that on the back burner for now. For all we know, it could have survived and locked down, so the last thing we need is walking into a military base full of live soldiers with live rounds with live twitchy fingers on triggers.
Alicia and Mark are attentive students. Nate makes me feel like a million dollars at times as well, allowing me to speak and share my experiences, using me as a good example of handling and the like. I bet he was a great officer to serve under when he was in the trenches, you know. He’s a good teacher and really makes you feel like you have value.
Nate has this thing now, where he opens the door and throws out a whistle into the building, listens for any movement of undead and if so, steps back away from the door and waits for them to come out. Choose the ground most advantageous for you is the lesson there, as in the open, one or two undead are easy to deal with in melee. You just sidestep and flank them, as they can’t turn for shit, so you get the time to aim and brain.
Alicia and Mark both got the opportunity to skull-puncture zombies, and they both did it with very different reactions. Mark acted like I did the first time I smashed up a zombie skull in close quarters; he puked his guts up. That’s how normal people react, because it’s a fucking gross and ugly process, so you know Mark will take all of this with the gravitas a sensible person should. Tick in the box for our resident engineer.
Nate and I were a little concerned about Alicia though. Since Nate got through to her with his Kadie story and she calmed down, we thought she’d be a bit more level-headed, and in the main, she has. She’s listened to us both attentively, asked pertinent questions, hasn’t pushed for being armed and firing live rounds; she’s basically done everything that Nate wanted from her in the right way, which
