Chapter 11
The gunshots proceeded to echo around the car park, before stopping. Oh no. Our van was very clearly being used, so they were going to want to investigate.
“Out.” Courtney whispered.
“Are you…” Teegan began, but Courtney silenced her, signalling for us to move out of the van.
She wrenched the doors open, popped her head out, and then thrust her hands up in surrender. I wondered who on earth she was afraid of, but, of course, that was before I saw who we were surrendering to.
Lots and lots of guns. And when I say guns, I mean guns. Machine guns, snipers, grenades, everything you could imagine, it seemed. All held by men, men who looked and acted like experts.
Of course, who had to go running out? No, not us, the pups. Daniella leapt out of the van, rushing to grab them, as the large group looked on in amusement. When Daniella finally caught them, we were all out of the van, Teegan looking warily at the many guns pointed in our direction.
“Uh… hi?” Courtney offered.
“Who are you?” One man, who seemed like the leader, asked.
His features were that of a middle aged man, maybe mid-forties, with slightly grey hair and dark brown eyes, with his brow furrowed in thought, and his expression like a rain cloud. Dark, miserable, but maybe not wet. His clothes were normal for one who had survived our world so long, battered, worn, and all dark. In his hardened hands was a machine gun of sorts, the type I did not, could not, recognise. Slung onto his back was a sniper, the type, again, unidentified.
Surrounding him was, of course, his crew. Men and women, but no children, I noticed. Of course, it would be strange, abnormal, to send children to war, so it would be the same, I reasoned, with simply going outside on a Z-Day. They mostly wore the same as one another, with backpacks and guns hung around their person. Looks of courage, bravery, no cowardice at all. Well, we wouldn’t have any either, if we had the fire power that they did.
The conversation continued, a little frostily, as the man, whose name was Matthew, displayed his authority clearly. Very clearly. All too soon, it became apparent that they weren’t just here to chat. They wanted our van, our supplies, and our dogs. They wanted us.
Well, when I say Courtney wasn’t one to stand around and watch, I really mean it. As soon as I whispered, hardly audibly, my suspicions in her ear, she told the others a plan and counted down. Three… two… one… go. A grenade was thrown, doors were slammed, curses were yelled and tires squealed. Wait, I should probably give you a more detailed explanation.
About a millisecond after Courtney uttered ‘one’, Daniella backed in to the back of the van suddenly, throwing a grenade as she did. In the few seconds of confusion after she had thrown it, me, Courtney and Teegan all ran to the front of the van, shooting at our alive foes and trying to get away.
I jumped quickly into my seat in the front of the van, waiting for Teegan to scramble in before shoving the gear stick into action. Courtney pressed down on the pedals, the van gave out a hearty roar, the tires screeched on the tarmac, and off we rushed.
Shots embedded themselves into the sides of the van, but all we cared about was getting away from that would-be horrific massacre.
We didn’t stop once, not until we were well on our way back to Ashton. Ashton, it seemed, was the safest place in the world. All of the big cities had been taken over, only the small towns and villages remained. But, for some reason, the desire to travel to far off places was never quite quenched within our group.
“Liverpool?” Courtney asked jokingly.
“NO!” We all yelled in unison, falling about laughing.
Life at the library was, surprisingly, dull, what with no excitement but 100% safety and security. Boring? Courtney certainly thought so. We were training day and night, Courtney, me and the dogs going out in all hours to catch Zombies to train on. There seemed to be a constant supply of our undead friends, so we were never short of them.
I, as always, helped out with the underground supply road, informing the group when we had extra supplies and sometimes nabbing a few bits and bobs off the crates.
One day, a certain crate, which was very heavy, opened to reveal a T.V! It was nothing fancy, not a flat screen, but it did have a strange brand name on it: ‘Z-O-M-T-V’. There was only a handful of channels, just a few were: ‘Z-News’, ‘Zombs 4 Kids’, ‘Surviving The Apocalypse’… you get it. It definitely increased morale among the Library survivors, but it also had to be kept at a very low volume, or something bad happened, as we were soon to realise.
Let me explain this properly. A group had, quite ignorantly, left the T.V on. At a quite high volume. And left. Like idiots. The noise attracted Zombies, too many for the snipers to kill silently, so we were all roused to the sound of low moans and the ripping of wood. They were getting in!
Suddenly, I relived the moment when the Zombies broke into the Holly Bush pub. All was silent, until the ominous silence gave way to the sounds of pure evil, the groans and low pitched screams of the Zombies. Only this was a different scenario. We hadn’t reacted in time, so everyone was getting ripped apart, but I seemed to be watching from above. Everything was in slow motion, and guilt washed over me as I saw everyone I had protected dying…
CRASH! Woah, that had woken me up pretty fast. The Zombies were in, and everyone who had guns was using them. I grabbed my Sawn-Off Shotguns, slinging my magnums around my person and shooting accurately in the direction of any Zombies.
In the midst of the fray, Courtney yelled at me to get down. Wondering why, I ducked, only to see someone chuck a silver grenade right near a Zombie. A flash of silver followed it, hitting a Zombie right in the eye. Daniella had lost none of her talents, especially not her love of throwing knives, and one grenade was not going to stop it.
It was lucky that I had ducked, as the explosion that followed would have thrown me to the floor, had I stayed standing up.
The impact from the grenade shook the whole building, but it also made the Zombie numbers manageable, and practically won the fight for us. We only had to shoot the remaining undead, before quickly doing a scan of the Library. There was only a few left, which we dealt with, while bordering up the entrances quickly.
It was not until the morning came, and proper light, that we saw the real damage. Entire bookshelves thrown to the ground, cracked windows shattered and old doors blasted to bits. Our safe Library was safe no more.
But there was no time to weep. We needed to clean up, checking each other for injuries. The only problem was that a Zombie bite instantly doomed you to die, so we were forced to execute anyone with a single bite.
Luckily, no one in our group had a bite, but a poor little boy did, and it broke our hearts to have to watch someone shoot him. His mop of light brown hair hung over his eyes, his frightened blue eyes, and his body was so thin that his arms and legs looked like twigs.
After sorting out people, we had to sort out the actual Library. Everywhere was dirty, with the floor covered in debris and the furniture mostly destroyed. Some people were making new furniture out of the ruined wreckage, some were trying to clean the soiled carpets and rugs, others scavenging among the ruins for anything of use. Courtney and I were helping two other people make the fire again, which had not (Fortunately) burned down the entire building. Instead, it had gone out, meaning that we were very cold.
Teegan was minding the dogs and puppies, while Daniella helped to wash and repair some clothes, which had been spoiled in the chaos.
But then, something came on the T.V, and it made us all stop what we were doing and stare. Just stare, as we had no idea of what we were hearing. Not a cloth moved, not a breath was heard, as we listened to the T.V in awe.