11. The Warehouse

It was nearly three miles from the warehouse to the coastguard agency, which sat close to Mayflower park and the docks. Donnie drove slowly and carefully, with Davey driving behind them, snaking around the cars and bins and bodies that lay rotting in the road. At one point, in one of the more residential areas, Lester and Greer had had to jump out of the jeep and move several cars out of the way in order to get through. It was better once they got nearer the docks. The air was salty and fresh, and Greer realised he had never been so grateful to see the sea in his life. If he’d had a choice, a trip to Bournemouth beach would have been ten times better than a visit to the Southampton docks, but it was better than nothing.

‘Holy shit,’ Lester said, rolling down his window and sticking his head out. ‘Talk about a ghost ship, do you guys see that?’

Greer turned his head and spotted a huge cruise ship floating a mile or so out from the coast, lightly bobbing in the lapping waves. He scrabbled around in the glove box until he found a small pair of binoculars - Donnie always thought of everything - and held them up to his eyes. He could just about make out the colourful blobs to be deck chairs, but not much else, so he passed them back to Lester as they cruised closer to the coastguard station.

‘Do you think some rich bozos tried to flee on that ship and still got caught by the virus?’ Lester asked. No one said anything. Greer had wondered the same thing, but the idea that the ship might be roaming with crawlers was not a nice one. ‘Any of you ever been on a cruise? Man, that was always on my bucket list. Maybe one day when we’ve corrected the world, eh?’

‘Dream on,’ Danny piped up, the first thing he had said the whole journey. ‘There’s no one to teach us how to sail the boats, or fix them. The world is never gonna go back to what it used to be.’

Greer thought Danny was right, but Lester guffawed and made a fuss, going on with a strange optimism that Greer had never seen from him before.

‘What do you think our mission is, eh?’ Lester probed, poking at Danny, who was staring straight ahead at the back of Donnie’s seat. ‘We’re bringing kids together so we can build the city back up, ain’t that right, Donnie?’ Donnie said nothing and focused on his driving. 

‘You’re dreaming,’ Danny replied. ‘What do you think is gonna happen to us when we turn eighteen?’ Greer watched in the rearview mirror as Danny turned to Lester and said angrily. ‘We’ll get infected too, and turn into creatures and rip apart everyone we saved.’

‘We don’t know that,’ Lester said quietly, turning back to the window. Greer had never heard him sound so unsure.‘That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look forward and try.’

Danny pressed his head against the window and closed his light eyes. ‘Yeah, well, if you’d returned home from a food run to find your dad eating your baby brother, maybe you’d be less enthusiastic about the future.’

The image hung in the air. Lester shut his mouth, his lips pursed into a tight line. Greer stared ahead at the road where Donnie was carefully manoeuvring around a haphazardly parked truck. They were edging closer to the old coastguard station now, and could see the tower sticking out from behind the boathouse and the fancy restaurant that sat on the waterfront that Greer’s dad had always promised to take his mum to but never had. 

‘I don’t see any crawlers, do you?’ Donnie asked, and Greer looked around.

‘No,’ he replied. ‘I thought Cry said there were loads in this area?’

‘He did,’ Donnie said, clearly troubled. ‘Lester, can you spot anything with the binoculars?’

Lester pressed them to his eyes again and stuck his head out of the window. ‘Uh, I can see a couple of dead ones, I think. Ahead, in the road.’

They swerved around a motorbike that lay on its side and saw what Lester had seen. Greer first saw the lone one, splayed on its front with black blood still oozing from its wounds. There were several holes in its back that Greer thought could only have been caused by bullets. Donnie drove straight over it, and the bones crunched underneath the wheels. Then they saw the pile. A huge pile of crawler bodies, all stacked on top of each other, limbs sticking out at odd angles, rotting in the sun. Black flies swarmed around them, and Lester quickly put his window up, but it was too late, and the smell had encased the jeep. 

‘Holy fuckin’ shit,’ Lester said, his voice muffled behind the hand he’d clamped over his mouth and nose. ‘Look at the wounds. That’s some serious weapon.’

As they drifted past, Donnie pulled out his walkie-talkie, switched the channel and radioed Davey in the jeep behind them. ‘Stay vigilant; something weird is going on here, over.’ 

Davey crackled back, ‘Roger that, over.’

As they pulled up to the old coast guard station, something became very apparent. They were not the first ones here. There was a black SUV and a small minivan parked outside, and the boot of the minivan was open, and so was the door to the station. There was no one that they could see, but they definitely weren’t alone.

‘Damnation,’ Donnie hit the wheel in frustration, making Greer jump. ‘Someone must have intercepted our message.’

‘Do you think it’s the same people who took down Cry’s relays?’ Greer asked. 

‘Cry said that it was crawlers,’ Donnie replied, his eyes focused on the front of the station. 

‘But why would crawlers take down a relay? It doesn’t make any sense,’ Greer said, curling his fingers around the handle of his tomahawk.

‘Who knows what crawlers are capable of!’ Donnie snapped, then instantly realised his mistake. ‘The undead, I mean,’ he corrected, turning the engine off. ‘We go in and investigate. It might be someone who needs our help.’

‘Don’t look like it, does it?’ Lester said, reminding them of the piles of bodies. ‘Looks like they’re better equipped than we are.’

Donnie radioed Davey and told him to cut the engine and to take his boys around the back of the station as backup. The four of them quietly climbed out of the car and pulled out their weapons. Donnie and Lester had rifles whilst Danny clung to a shotgun and Greer, of course, had his tomhawk raised and ready. He had yet to use it, and part of him was itching to whilst the other part - the older brother part - hoped he didn’t need to. Not now. 

The front doors were propped open with two chairs that had been dragged out from the waiting area that swallowed them in. There were no lights inside, and the desk had been ransacked, with papers and visitor passes strewn over the floor. A water cooler had been knocked over, and Lester almost slipped over, and he crossed too quickly in front of Greer. 

‘Where did he say this trans-receiver thingy would be?’ Lester asked, his voice not hushed enough for Greer’s liking. He shot him a look and a harsh shhh. 

‘He didn’t,’ Donnie replied, looking at the two doors ahead of them, one going right and one going left. ‘He just said what it looked like. Grey metal box. Coastguard in yellow on the side. Lester, you come with me. You two, go left.’

Greer swallowed his feeling of unease and led Danny to the left door. He pulled it open, the handle cool against his palm, to reveal a small staff room. Danny quickly started rifling through the cupboards.

‘Whoa, Danny, slow down,’ Greer warned, fearing the rustling was too loud. ‘We’re not here to scavenge.’

‘I am so fucking hungry,’ he shot back, opening up another cupboard and pulling out a share bag of Monster Munch. ‘Jackpot!’

Greer saw the purple packaging. ‘Are those pickled onion flavour?’

‘Yep, want some?’ Danny smiled and held up the back. Greer thought that might have been the first time he’d ever seen Danny smile.

‘Uh, yes please, that’s only my bloody favourite flavour of crisps ever!’ Greer beamed, though instantly flushed red. Was that a cringe thing to say? Danny didn’t seem to mind. He tore open the bag, shoved a few of the paw-shaped crisps into his mouth and handed it to Greer. He smelled the bag first, taking in that strong, vinegary scent before devouring four in a row. ‘Mhm!’ he moaned through a mouthful. ‘This is the best thing I have eaten in so long!’

When the bag was demolished, Greer licked the crumbs from his fingers, and Danny screwed up the wrapper and tossed it on the floor. It had only been about five minutes in total, but Greer knew they had been idling for too long. 

‘Come on then,’ he urged Danny. ‘They’ve probably found it by now.’

‘Unless whoever drove that van beat us to it,’ Danny said. He looked down at his feet and said, rather sheepishly. ‘I really didn’t want to come on this ‘mission’, you know,’ he said, doing air quotes. ‘I only came back with you guys because there was nowhere else to go. I think I’ll be pretty useless with this thing.’ He held up the gun that was strapped across his chest and sighed. ‘I’m sorry for being pessimistic in the car. That Lester just grinds my gears.’

‘Yeah,’ Greer said, unsure where this was heading. He wanted to go and find Donnie. The station was not that big, and if he had or hadn’t found the transceiver by now, he’d have come and told them, surely? ‘Lester’s good at that. But he means well.’

‘He means too well,’ Danny sighed. ‘What’s the point in doing some dumb mission if we’re all gonna end up like those stinkin’ things outside anyway?’

Greer thought about what Danny had said earlier. That his dad had eaten his baby brother, and how easily that could have been his mum eating Gage. If he didn’t have Gage, he might well be as pessimistic as someone like Danny. Gage was really his anchor, the thing that kept him grounded and level-headed, kept him alive. He reached an arm out and patted Danny’s shoulder awkwardly. ‘Has Donnie ever shown you the baby room?’ he asked, but before Danny could answer, they heard a series of crashes and yelps coming from the other room. 

Both of them dashed out, yanking the door that Donnie and Lester had taken open and raising their weapons. There was a huge mess of papers, wires and computer parts all over the floor, and Donnie, Lester, Davey and the other boys were all on their knees with their hands on their heads. Their weapons had been stacked on a counter behind them. Lester’s eyes were wide and pleading, and he was frantically nodding his head, trying to warn Greer of something, but it was too late. He felt something poke into his back and knew it was the end of a gun.

‘Weapons down, hands up,’ came a voice. It was stern, but almost comical-sounding. Like a kid trying to play as an adult, putting on a deeper voice. ‘Don’t make me ask twice.’

Greer bent down and carefully put his tomahawk on the floor, and then got onto his knees. Danny did the same. From behind him came two people, dressed all in black. One was very short and petite, and the black leather jacket they were wearing was too big; the other was fatter and taller, and both had black balaclavas pulled over their faces. The small one took Danny’s gun, and the larger one picked up his tomahawk and started inspecting it. He hadn’t even got to use it yet, and it was already being stolen. They had proper guns across their chests; machine guns or something even more powerful, and they put Greer and Danny’s weapons on the table with the rest and then trained their guns onto Donnie, who was at one end of the line, and Davey, who was at the other. How had they been taken out by this lot?

‘Good, you offered less resistance than your comrades here,’ the voice came again, and he felt the gun move from his back to the back of his head. He looked at Donnie, whose brow was furrowed, beads of sweat rolling off of it and dripping onto the floor, and they exchanged a glance. Donnie’s dark eyes flashed quickly at him as if to say, I am thinking of a plan. 

‘What do you want from us?’ Greer asked, his voice wobbling. He felt stupid as soon as he opened his mouth, but the words were already out. 

‘The transceiver,’ Donnie said. ‘They’re here for the transceiver, same as us.’

‘Your friend is correct,’ the voice said into his ear, bending down to drag a finger across his finger. It made him shiver. A lock of hair brushed against his cheek, and he realised the voice must belong to a girl. A girl trying to sound like a boy. That’s why it sounded so weird. ‘We have the transceiver, and we have your weapons. So, we win.’

‘Win?’ Lester questioned. ‘What did you win?’

‘The race,’ the voice replied. ‘We got here first, fair and square. We got the receiver, so we won.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Donnie said, trying to remain calm. ‘We were told to come here. We don’t even know who you are!’

‘Oh!’ the voice squealed, accidentally too high-pitched. They coughed and returned to their deeper voice. ‘How interesting! So that’s another advantage we have just gained. We know all about you, and you know nothing of us.’ 

Greer was beginning to get as angry as Donnie looked. ‘Okay, so just tell us! Who are you? Did you take down the relays?’ Greer asked, his arms beginning to ache. ‘Cry’s relays?’

The voice laughed. ‘Oh, no. We’ve been putting them back up! He didn’t ask you to help with that then, I assume? No? Probably a good idea, seeing how you messed this mission up so badly.’

‘Are you saying Cry sent you here?’ Donnie asked.

‘Yes. I am. He sent you too, I know. Well, he must have already picked his favourites because he told us it was a race. First one to get the transceiver wins. And my team is always up for a challenge.’

‘Wins what?’ Donnie practically growled. He was shaking with anger. So was Greer. It had been a set-up. Cry, the disembodied robot-voice geek, had led them right into an ambush. 

‘Oh, we’ll have to find out, won’t we?’ the voice said. Greer turned his head to the left slightly, trying to check on Danny, but a hand yanked his hair and forced him to look forward. The voice pulled something out of their pocket, and Greer heard the familiar crackle of a walkie-talkie. ‘Tabbycat to Cry, we have the transceiver, over.’

Almost instantly, Cry’s familiar robot voice chirped back, ‘Congratulations, Clem. I knew you wouldn’t let me down. Over.’

‘So,’ the voice said. ‘What do we win?’

‘The Shadows won’t know this, so I hope you are listening out. You are not the only group that has had contact with me. Clem’s team here, who remain classy and nameless, have also been doing what you do. Rescuing kids, building an army, blah blah. I’ve been keeping an eye on both of you, from my tower, watching how you moved and what strategies you employed. I believe you would be better as one combined group. My eyes on the ground, so to speak. Clem’s group has better organisation, better communication and better skill. They demonstrated that today. But my pal, old Donnie Darko there, found a much better location and much better vehicles. They also have a few more weapons than you and more men. So, Clem, what you have won is the chance to prove your worth as the leader of the Shadows. I want your team to move into the warehouse and work togeth–’

‘What!’ Donnie shouted, jumping up before anyone could stop him. The barrel of the gun moved from Greer’s back and pointed at Donnie. Greer used this opportunity to roll sideways, diving across the floor and knocking into Danny. The commotion gave Donnie enough time for Donnie to throw an elbow into the crotch of the fat one, who was standing behind him. The fat one toppled over, and Lester took the opportunity to leap forward and grab at the legs of Clem, who shrieked and kicked him right in the face, a sickening crunch filling the room. Blood spurted from his nose and sprayed across the floor, and in all the panic Greer realised Danny had managed to crawl across the room and was pulling weapons from the pile. He slid the tomahawk across the floor, and it spun around, landing handle first in front of Greer like it was meant to be. He grabbed it and jumped up.

‘My fucking nose!’ Lester wailed, rolling around on the floor. ‘You broke my damn nose!’

Greer finally got a good look at Clem, and realised it was indeed a girl. She had a white theatre mask on, and a well-fitting leather biker jacket paired with leather jeans that made her look more like a witch's black cat than a tabby cat, as she had called herself on the walkie-talkie. A sleek, black bob hung forward over the mask as she held up her gun and aimed it at Lester.

‘Clem!’ the thinner one yelled, whipping their balaclava off to reveal a young face, barely a teenager. She also had black hair, but it was curly and long, falling over her back now that the balaclava was gone. Danny had one arm around her neck, and the other was holding the shotgun in a very precarious fashion. 

‘Nobody is shooting anybody!’ Clem yelled, causing the room to go silent and still. Will and Ali, who had not said a word the entire time, were pressed close together, trembling. ‘We are supposed to work together,’ she said, aiming her gun at Lester, who was still clutching his face on the floor. She looked at Donnie. ‘Tell you man, to let her go, or he’ll have worse than a broken nose to deal with.’

‘He’s scared,’ Donnie said through gritted teeth. ‘You had guns on us, and you expect us to just roll over like good dogs and do what you say? You’re not gonna shoot us, or you would have already.’

‘Try me,’ Clem smirked, but Greer heard her voice crack on the second word, as though she had clearly been bluffing. 

Lester pushed himself up onto his knees, blood streaming freely from between his fingers and dripping in big fat droplets onto the floor. He glared at Clem over the top of his hand, angrier than Greer had ever seen him. ‘I don’t care if you’re a girl, I’m still beating your ass up for breaking my damn nose!’

He tried to stand up, but he had gone pale and swooned forward, more blood dripping down, running across a groove in the floor that Greer had only just noticed. He followed the groove and the flow of crimson and realised it ran into a vent on the floor that he hadn’t noticed before. Did that lead directly outside? Hadn’t Cry said the place had been crawling with crawlers? Clem and her team took out a lot, but surely not all of them. Before he could say anything, there was a low groan that echoed around the room.

‘What was that?’ the fat one asked, pulling off his balaclava too, revealing a pink, chubby face, rounded and stark with horror. ‘Was that you, Bethy?’

‘No,’ the curly-haired girl shook her head, still trapped by Danny’s arm. 

‘It came from the vents,’ Greer said.

Bethy went still in Danny’s arm. ‘Clem, we didn’t sweep the outside. We cleared the inside, but we didn’t sweep the beach or the–’

‘Everyone get back,’ Clem snapped, her gun swinging from Lester to the vent. ‘Now, get behind me!’

Nobody argued. Donnie, Davey, Paul, Will and Ali jumped up and grabbed their weapons. Donnie pulled Lester back by the scruff of his collar, but it was too late. The vent cover exploded outwards in a spray of rust and dust as something huge forced its way through into the room.

It hit the ground running, skidding on the tiled floor and scuttling straight for Lester. It was bigger than any crawler Greer had ever seen, and up close he could see its sharp ribs straining against the grey, papery skin. It snarled and snapped its jaws at Lester, who tried to throw himself backwards, but the creature’s claws caught his shoulder and spun him hard into the corner of the room, knocking his head into the corner of a low table. The thing was on him in a heartbeat, but so was Donnie, who had grabbed his rifle and slammed the butt into the back of its head. It snapped around, unfazed, and then pounced on Lester again, this time landing right on top of his unconscious body. Greer ran, slicing his tomahawk through the air and into the right arm of the crawler. It flew backwards, clearly more hurt now, and Greer tried to drag Lester by his arms, but he was too heavy.

‘Everyone out!’ Donnie screamed, blasting his gun into the creature’s chest. The spray of bullets only angered it more, and it lost interest in Lester, now prowling slowly around the room towards the group. Greer was on the other side, still trying to drag Lester. Clem had frozen in her heavy boots, finger on the trigger of her gun. Davey, Paul, Will and Ali made it to the door, but Danny, for some reason, still had his arm around Bethy. ‘Danny! Let her go!’

He released her, and the fat one quickly pulled her back against the wall. The crawler was slow, dripping a trail of black blood across the floor, mingling with the blood from Lester’s nose. Donnie was backed against the wall too, leaving Danny and Clem standing there, facing off with the creature. One second, Danny was raising his shotgun, a fierce look spreading downwards from his brows to his lips, and the next, the creature had barrelled into him, its full weight driving him backwards and off his feet. It happened too fast for any of them to do anything. Greer dropped Lester’s arm and, in a fraction of a second, had his tomahawk raised and ready to bury into the creature from behind. He heard the wet crunch before he got there. The crawler had Danny’s throat between its teeth, and Danny wasn’t screaming anymore, but he was looking up at the ceiling with an unsettlingly calm settling across his face. It was like he’d know, somehow, exactly how this would end; the way he talked about his dad and his baby brother in the care, the way he refused to participate in the optimism, it was like he’d known what was coming.

‘No!’ he cried out, swinging the tomahawk and burying it into the creature's spine. It howled in pain and lifted its head, mouth stained bright red from Danny’s blood. The creature reared upwards onto its legs and toppled backwards, where Donnie shot it again in the chest. It shrieked and curled up like an injured dog and scuttled away from Danny’s corpse, hunting for a new, warm body to prey upon. It clicked its jaw rhythmically, almost like it was licking its lips, and then settled its sights on Clem, who was backing away, close to the door. 

Donnie hauled a barely conscious Lester up and ducked past Clem into the open air outside, Bethy and the fat one following behind him. Clem had every chance to run, but she seemed stuck. Greer looked at her face and realised she mustn't have ever been this close to one before. She raised her gun and aimed it, then Greer heard the panicked click-click-click of an empty chamber.

Her gun hadn’t even been loaded. 

The creature stepped closer to her, so slowly that it seemed to be mocking her fear. It tilted its head to the left, and then to the right, and just as it was about to leap forward again, Greer jumped across the table and brought his tomahawk down on its head. The head peeled into two uniform halves, revealing a slimy grey and shrivelled brain that slopped to the floor and sent a spray of black bile across both Clem and Greer. The body crumpled downwards, landing at Greer’s feet. He was still holding the tomahawk in position, entirely shocked that it had actually split the damn thing in two.

Clem slid down onto the floor, and for a moment, she was not an enemy, but a scared little girl covered in blood, probably wishing for her mum the same as Greer was. He stepped over the body, nearly slipping in the blood, and extended a hand down to her. She accepted it, and he hauled her back up and pulled her out into the sunlight.

‘No need to thank me,’ he said before she could. ‘That’s just what we do.’

It was a cringe thing to say, but it seemed to have an effect on her – for a moment. Then she dusted off her jacket, recomposed herself, and turned to her minions.

‘I can’t believe you two just left me in there!’ she snapped at them. Bethy blinked furiously, trying to bat away tears. 

The fat one looked confused. ‘You were right by the door! I thought–’

‘You thought wrong! We are supposed to be the competent ones; we beat them, we’ve got the transceiver!’ She pointed at the van, where Greer could just about see the grey box inside. 

Donnie stepped forward, something surging inside him. His hands were curled into tight fists, and Greer thought he looked like he was going to punch Clem in her pale face and break her nose like she had Lester’s. ‘Danny is dead because of you.’

‘How is that my fault?’

‘If you hadn’t ambushed us with some stupid game set up by that sneak Cry, we would have been in and out – with or without that damn transceiver – within minutes. You kept us there, then you broke Lester’s nose, and that undead tracked the blood and then tore Danny’s neck open. Because of you.’ Donnie glanced back inside, where they had left Danny. ‘And you can think again if you think we’re going to let you anywhere near our warehouse now.’

Clem gulped. ‘Well, that might be a little tricky.’

‘Why?’

‘Because my people are already there, taking it over now,’ she said, not quite looking at Donnie. ‘Look, Cry wanted to combine us. I didn’t want that. I thought you were amateurs. I still think you’re amateurs, but you saved me.’ She turned to Greer. ‘You saved me. And so I think that proves we would make a good team. Could make a good team. If I had just half of your manpower and your resources, this would have gone very differently, I assure you.’

Donnie had walked away and was frantically trying to contact the warehouse on his own walkie-talkie, but no one was answering. ‘We need to get back,’ he said, slamming a hand onto the bonnet of the jeep. He glared daggers at Clem. ‘If your people have gotten any more of mine killed, I swear–’

‘Don,’ Lester interrupted, his voice nasally because he was pinching at his broken nose. ‘You need to say a prayer. For Danny.’

They went back inside the station. All of them, including Bethy and the fat one – who Greer learned was called Cal. Donnie knelt next to Danny’s mangled corpse and crossed himself. Everyone copied. He began praying, murmuring about God, and forgiveness, and the afterlife. Greer hoped that if heaven was real, Danny was up there with his brother now. He thought of Gage, and quietly prayed for him too, despite not being religious.

When Donnie was finished, he wiped a tear from his eyes and looked at Clem. ‘We’re not leaving him here.’

‘No,’ she shook her head. ‘Of course not.’

Donnie and Clem wrapped Danny’s body carefully in a piece of blue tarpaulin they found in a cupboard, and carried him out. They put him in the back of Clem’s van, with the transceiver. Donnie slammed the door shut and climbed into the driver’s side of his jeep. Greer went to follow, but Clem pulled him back.

‘It’s Greer, right?’ she asked.

‘Yeah.’

She offered a hand, which was streaked with Danny’s blood. ‘Thank you for saving me. I’m sorry about your friend. It won’t happen again. I really do think we can start something good together. I know he doesn’t think so,’ she nodded to Donnie, who was staring at them through the windscreen. ‘But Cry wants us together for a reason, right?’

Greer looked at her hand for a long moment. Then he looked at the tomahawk in his own hands, and then to the space in the jeep where Danny should have been sitting. It was all one big fuck up, but for some reason, for something he couldn’t quite put a name on yet, he shook her hand anyway.