Bulldog: Too Many Monsters - Chapter 5
Bulldog 1: Too Many Monsters
Chapter 5: White Bridge
“Did you see anything out there? Any clue where we should head” the kid asked impatiently.
I snuck a peek outside through a crack in the door; the street was quiet but for a scream going off in the distance. From our hideaway, I couldn’t find any direction to head towards. All I could see was the front facing opposite end of the run of garages.
“Did you find anything useful?” I asked back, having previously instructed the kid to search for any tools or weapons we could use to defend ourselves.
“Yeah,” he mumbled back quietly, handing me a shovel and keeping hold of a piece of rebar that was above the size of a bat.
“Should do the job,” I said, giving him some praise to lift his head from the ground.
“Don’t think we should stay here much longer. Those things might be closer than we think.”
He was right, but I still hadn’t any idea which way to run or the chances of bumping directly into one of those ravenous bastards outside. I think we need to leave regardless of the dangers outside. I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were on a timer in this maze the occupying forces have constructed using our very own towns and estates.
“We should go,” I said, keeping my eyes on the gap in the door.
“Yeah, I agree. Sitting here is making me more nervous,” the kid quickly snapped back, getting back to his feet.
“Before we go” I stopped him with a hand on the shoulder as he headed for the door. “What’s your name? If we are in this together, I want to know who’s got my back if this goes pear-shaped.”
“I’m Bacary; my friends call me Bucket. You can call me Bucket, I guess.” He said, smiling, with face now destroyed with worry lines.
“Bucket, that’s cool. I’m Francis, but everyone calls me Frank. Francis is a shit name” I laughed, giving him some normality, hiding the fear induced vomit bubbling up in my chest.
“It’s nice to meet you, I guess Frank,” he replied, throwing his weapon over his shoulder.
I nodded and slid the door gingerly open, ensuring it made minimal noise on its way back up into the mechanism. It looked clear. Apart from witchingly ominous screaming and the horrific noise those things made, it was relatively muted in the open. For the better part of our luck, the screams occurred some distance away.
“Let’s go, follow me,” I instructed of my new friend Bucket, waving a hand to minimise the noise I needed to make.
“Right behind you,” he whispered back.
We took our time heading out, past the garages that housed a large, seemingly unexpected oak tree at its centre. The streets still held a faint tinnitus ringing of screams and monster growls. It kept us aware of the danger. Every crack of the acorn shells dried up beneath our feet sent shivers up my spine, alerting that horde present seemingly everywhere, if the ears could be believed, was the last thing I wanted to do.
“Look” Bucket called out.
I flinched at his abrupt volume but found the direction he pointed. It appeared to be a large school grounds, bordered with six feet high metal fence work all around. Running parallel was a run of school-facing houses that stood detached. Potentially full of those creatures. If one house, why not these? All my doubts, however, seemed outweighed by the possibility of finding shelter or further clues in the school. It was a huge governmental building. Granted, it was a public-school judging by the playground equipment and construction materials, but it should have facilities in place for emergencies. I just hoped the occupiers hadn’t thought to clear it first before sealing it away within their own bloody playground. We approached the back fence. It was sturdy enough to bear our weight as we carefully hoisted ourselves up and over, landing softly on the playing grass. Two buildings. We would need to check both.
“This one first, we don’t split up and we keep in each other’s sight lines,” I instructed Bucket.
He nodded in agreement, and we made our way across the green fields, past the wooden playing equipment that made me oddly sad for the old days. I would have been safe. Finally, making it to the front entrance. “Welcome to White Bridge,” the sign above the doors read. I rattled the handle but as I should have expected, it was locked tight, likely by the soldiers who had seized its occupants at the point of incursion, but it was worth checking. Should get lucky during this entire living waking night-terror. I noticed the windows seemed loose against the latches to our left. Old-style English-poor this. Mould eaten away at the seals and left the windows, prime and ready for intrusion. I popped open the largest of the frosted glass panels after jamming my now sore fingers into the edges. Eventually it gave, and the frame gave me the opening.
“Got it,” I whispered to Bucket.
“Nice one” he smiled and gleefully twitched on the spot, eager to get inside and away from the exposed streets I imagined.
I hoisted myself up, dangling my feet, just enough to see inside. It looked like a bathroom for children, small sinks, and toilets at lower heights. Should be secure enough for a starting point in our trespass. I dropped back onto my heels and gave Bucket all clear with a smooth nod. It was reassuring seeing his demeanour more hopeful and engaged. I was worried while we waited in the garages that I might need to leave him behind. But having the kid, Bucket, at my side, has been an added sense of strength while we work through this horrific labyrinth.
“Let me go in first and clear it, then I can pull you up” I offered my plan to Bucket and watched his eyes slightly widen.
“You think there could be people inside?” he asked nervously.
“Maybe”
I placed my hands back on the ledge and one foot in Buckets cupped hands; he hoisted me with some effort up and into the window. It was darker inside than I first thought, but I had been able to gently lower myself with a foot on the sink and a slight stumble to the floor. Before I pulled up my ally, I had a nose around the room to ensure it was indeed safe.
“Frank, everything alright?” he whispered through the open window.
“Yeah, give me your hand,” I replied, leading a hand out the window.
I pulled him up; thankfully, he was a slender guy, and his frame barely took much force to move. After he had gathered himself, we closed the window gently but left it ajar. Should we need to escape, it was our only known route. Exiting the bathroom was hazardous. I peeped through a slice of reveal into a large corridor and could see no signs of life. I truly wished the weapon I held was more comforting, but I had enough if those creatures even felt pain.
Would I just piss them off if I started swinging at them like some doomed woodpecker. Creaking the door open, I waved a hand behind me for Bucket to follow; I had my doubts after feeling his body weight about his strength in battle, but its more bodies on the front line that matter. It smelt like school in the corridor. Rubbers and cheap cleaning chemicals beneath our feet. I felt oddly sad. This place should by all rights be swarming with the future taxpayers and voters. Instead, it’s home to two terrified grown men hiding away from the big bad that took over our lives without even as much as a spit in the face of defiance. Bucket was making a failed whistle behind me to get my attention. Looking over my shoulder, he was gesturing at a closed door; it read ‘Staff Room.’
“Good spot,” I whispered to him and agreed physically to follow his lead.
Frankly, I had absolutely no idea what I was hoping to find here. It was a government building, but what exactly did that offer? Radios, perhaps, some form of emergency contact with any surviving authorities, maybe. In reality, I think I was just looking for some structure in the wake of madness. The room was unlocked, thankfully. But inside, we found something unexpected and likely more worrying than the monsters outside consuming our fellow survivors. Huddled inside the far corner of this old teachers’ lounge was a small group of gathered fellow players in the invaders’ sick game. From a quick glance, I counted three teenage men and a couple of young women. Unfortunately for them, I could also see a couple of pairs of children’s hands wrapped around them.
Cuddling and hiding from our intrusion and sudden, obviously alarming appearance in their hideout.
One of the group, a dark-skinned young man with a deep voice, stood up and armed himself with a wooden chair held in front of him. “Who the fuck are you?” he shouted across at us.
His volume startled me more than his threat. Having been so quiet for so long, it was worrying having someone flout the unspoken rules of survival. Keep your voice down, your head on a swivel and your allies between you and the enemy. Maybe that last rule was just for me. But having seen my dad, mum and little Sammy die before I even saw biting beasts in the flesh, I think my days of uniting with humanity are withering away. Bucket was my last strand of ugly friendship, and I wasn’t even sure he was going to have my back if this situation gets hideous.
“We are just looking for information,” I said calmly, holding my hands up but still holding my shovel in hand tightly.
“I don’t care. I need you to leave,” he instructed, well-ordered, but his shaky voice left it open to interpretation.
“Look, we just need to find out if the army or police left anything here that could help us. We saw a sign that mentioned a safe zone. We need to know where that is. I honestly just hope this place might have an answer,” I was honest. I don’t know why, but it felt useless lying as I watched the wide eyes of the young man shaking in fear.
“Safe zone?” he asked, slightly lowering the chair he assumed would disable me in a fight.
“Yeah, it was painted on a wall outside the tunnels” Bucket interrupted and peaked round me from behind. I should have been annoyed he was hiding, but it wasn’t time for that. Just need to remember that next time we have an encounter like this.
“Mate, what the fuck are you talking about?” he asked of us. It sounded like genuine confusion.
“We got released from these holding tunnels. With hundreds of other people. They let out some things. They looked like men, but they started attacking people. Eating them.” I saw his eyes widen even further, but I continued. “You really don’t know what’s going on?” I asked.
“How long have you been here?” Bucket interrupted me again.
“I don’t know,” the young man answered. His chair almost returning to the floor.
“It’s been weeks,” a voice from the huddle mass in the corner answered.
I saw a young woman’s head appear above the others as she tried to observe us for herself. It was an attractive face, unfitting for awful times like these.
“When did they release you?” I asked her, getting more chance of straight answers.
“They never released us. They never CAPTURED us,” she answered.
Bucket and I looked at each other silently. This was unreal. It had never even dawned on me that perhaps this all-invasive army had failed to collect every member of the public. Of course they couldn’t have, that’s millions of individual people. Most of whom know the country, towns, cities, estates, business, and countryside better than themselves. This was unprecedented. Weakness in the armour of this elusive, anonymous group of cloaked and controlling masters. I felt something I had not felt in a long time. Some foetal form of hope, brewing inside my non-existent womb.
“You have been hiding here since the invasion?” I asked.
“Yes,” the man with the chair replied. He leant against the previously used shield and let out an enormous head swinging sigh.
“We hid in the classrooms and broke in here when it was safe,” the woman explained.
“You have kids with you?” Bucket asked.
I wish he hadn’t. Knowing their secrets left the group with very little room to manoeuvre with two strangers like us probing them for information. I sized up the defending male that first threatened us. He was likely trouble enough if it unfortunately came to it. I hadn’t even got a good glimpse of the others.
“Only two. We…” she trailed off for a second and swallowed some horrible truth. “We had five. Three of them made a noise and got captured during the attack.”
“We couldn’t risk coming out of hiding to save them. Not without risking the others getting taken as well,” he interrupted, somewhat defending his actions.
Not that I was judging. I let my brother die. I left my father in his literal death bed as missiles flew over his property. I left Mum laying in a heap by the side of the road. I never went after Liz. I doubt many had clean, blood-free hands after this one-sided conquest.
“So, you don’t know anything about the safe zone?” I asked reluctantly, knowing the answer was going to be illuminating the break-in as a futile effort.
“No,” she answered before the others.
“Fuck,” I breathed under my breath.
I could feel Bucket pacing behind me, the stress beginning to set in as we both realised we had to keep moving.
“Do you have any water or food to spare?” a different young man asked from within the huddle that hid the children from our view.
“I am sorry, I really don’t,” I offered an apology.
“We should keep going,” Bucket said, tapping me on the elbow with his rebar.
“I know,” I answered.
“Can we come with you?” the young woman asked.
“No,” the young man with the chair answered abruptly.
“I agree,” I said, stopping this line of questioning before it strengthened. “It’s not safe out there and if you are safe here, stay put.”
“What about the food then, Marcus?” she began directing her anger towards her friend and away from either Bucket or me.
“I will go out and find some,” he offered with the least amount of conviction in his voice I had ever heard in a man.
“You know what’s out there, right?” Bucket stupidly asked.
I shot him a stern look, severe enough to get him quiet; he knew the message. Keep quiet and remove ourselves from this struggling group while we can. Kids or not, this was not our problem and getting to the safe zone, if it existed, was the ONLY goal. Not saving kids, not being a provider for a group of hide-aways lucky enough to have avoided the camps and not being the beacon of hope for others. We needed to survive, and this group was a death sentence waiting to happen.
“We hear them sometimes,” a tiny voice answered, and my stomach dropped.
“Shh baby, it’s okay,” the standing man replied to this tiny child.
He walked across to the huddle and grabbed hold of a tiny, pudgy hand that stuck out from behind the woman’s back. It was a little girl. Small and fat, just how kids should be. Her eyes stung-red with sadness and her dress covered in what I assumed was the blood of someone protecting her. Fuck this world.
“Are you going outside?” she asked him.
“Yes, but I will be back with some food to fill that little belly,” he said softly, poking her in the belly button and making her giggle for a second.
The group exchanged glances and there seemed to be some understanding that the lone male taking the lead might not return from his venture out scouting for supplies. He walked us away and as I left. I saw the pudgy little hand waving us goodbye. I ignored her and pretended I didn’t see. She wasn’t mine to save. Before we got to the door, the young man, Marcus, led us back into the bathroom and I showed him the window we popped. He seemed unworried. He suggested we fill some bottles he provided with water from the toilets. They appeared clean enough. Drinking water could become scarce as we push on, so this wasn’t the worst possibility available honestly.
“Thank you for not attacking us,” I joked, giving him a half smile.
“Thank you for not attacking us,” he replied with a faint smile of his own.
The exit was going to be through the main glass doors that he had locked from the inside, made sense now that we couldn’t open them on our arrival. The latch clicked loudly and echoed through the empty corridors that should have been alive with small stomping feet and squeaky plimsoles scuffing up the tiles.
“Can I not convince you to stay?” Marcus asked.
It would appear he seemed more eager to ask for help away from the judgemental masses he was tasked with protecting. Likely tasked by himself in some weird ego driven quest, but it was not my problem.
“I need to keep moving. If this safe zone is real, it might be the only way to get out and maybe get help,” I replied, only half believing what I was saying myself.
“Yeah, I guess you are right. I haven’t seen what you have. Might be worse than we…..” Marcus was interrupted mid-sentence by Bucket loudly whispering.
“GET DOWN!”
We dropped as he pushed his hands onto our shoulders and forced us to a knee and dragged us away from the glass. I dropped my shovel in the process and the loud bang multiplied its own crashing sound effect into ludicrous decibels.
“What the fuck?” I asked, steadying myself and removing Bucket’s hand from my shoulder.
“Look!” he whispered, pointing at the glass doors.
Outside the glass windows I saw the horrific sight that had shocked young Bucket into panic. Uncounted but large enough in numbers stood a group of those creatures, these gnashing, ravenous consumers of humanity. They slowly ambled towards the door, mercifully unaware of our intrusion or appearance. I praised any listening gods that the shovel dropping had not altered them to our presence behind a thin sheet of glass.
“What do we do?” Marcus asked. It was not very clear he had never faced the outside as it now exists.
“Stay quiet and stay away from the glass,” I ordered them both.
“We can make it back to the office with the others,” Marcus suggested by his eagerness to run away was alarming.
“Stay put for a second,” I asked calmly, not wanting to send him into further distress.
Before I could calm him down, Marcus had moved off from our covered space beside the entranceway and into the light. He was moving in a squat and going slow, but this decision was about to prove fatal. The glass smashed through. One body, then two, then three poured through it, falling as they did and spilling copious amounts of blood onto the floor from slices on the shattered doors.
“FUCK! RUN!” I yelled, jumping to my feet and missing my shovel as I scooped for it. Leaving it buried under the ever-mounting pile of creatures laying on the ground attempting to find their feet.
Bucket took off in front of me, slimmer but much more agile it would seem and bravely held the door to the office open as I crashed through and Marcus the same shortly behind me.
“You fucking idiot,” I said to Marcus through my panting breaths.
“What now?” Bucket asked.
“Look around for a way out.”
He nodded back at me and went off, searching the room for escape routes. I was in admiration for a moment. The kid that seemed so nervous and destined for emotional collapse had turned into this incredibly resilient team player when I needed him the most. Unlike this idiotic sheltered survivor that almost got us all killed because of his fears.
“What happened?” one of Marcus’s group asked, panicked.
“Those things, they got in,” Marcus explained, leaving out some incriminating details on his level of blame.
“Your dumb-fuck friend here let them see him and they burst through the door,” Bucket shouted across the room as he continued searching the windows and vent covers.
“HEY! FUCK YOU MAN!” Marcus bellowed out racing over to confront Bucket.
I stepped between him and the kid before they came within grabbing distance and pushed him away. Marcus was posturing up as if he were going to swing for me. I could feel Bucket breathing close behind me. I was very aware of his rebar still in hand. This could get ugly. We needed to leave now.
“Any luck?” I asked Bucket over my shoulder while keeping my body facing Marcus and his group. They began getting to their feet, and the two children seemed even tinier as they rose.
“No. We can smash a window. It looks like a clear run for the gates if we get out onto the fields,” he replied.
“You aren’t smashing the windows. You will leave us exposed,” the young woman called out.
“You are already exposed,” I said back, whipping my head back to her and back to Marcus to observe his disposition. I saw his fists still clenched and kept myself between him and Bucket as a physical meaty barrier.
Banging at the door erupted and became the only concern. Screams from the huddled group mirrored the groans and gurgling outside in volume and only served to piss me off. I waved both hands to instruct them to keep quiet and silence the children, who gasped and began crying out for their parents. I hadn’t even thought of these people as the carers. The poor kids had obviously lost their families already. Thuds and scratching against the door handle, the frame and the thin frosted wire-enforced panel of glass intensified as the screams from the living occupants stopped.
Marcus and another guy from the group began moving tables across the room and dragged a large water cooler that empty to block the entrance. I couldn’t help but feel this was futile for them. Deep down I knew how this was ending for everyone involved, I imagine young Bucket was also aware. I knew it was going to be another life-altering scar that my psyche would either handle or used to break me.
“Smash the window,” I instructed Bucket quietly. Not quietly enough for the woman to hear.
“No, Marcus help!” she called across and the same-what leader of this group once again made his way over.
Before I could defuse this boiling pot of a situation for the second or third time, from behind my back came a swinging thud from Buckets rebar. Full connection with the head of Marcus, knocking him out cold into a pathetic heavy pile on the floor. Screams erupted once more and the young man aiding Marcus ran to his side, half threatening Bucket with some vague threats, but in reality we knew he was going to do nothing in retaliation.
“Marcus, wake the fuck up, man,” the young man begged.
It was sadly plain the hit had done more damage than perhaps intended as the red pool spilled out onto the other man’s lap, dribbling down onto the floor. This was over. We needed to get out before this turned worse. Somehow, if that was possible.
I turned to Bucket, who stood shaking and paralysed at what he had done. “Break a window. We are leaving now.”
Bucket turned and went immediately to have one last look outside the windows affixed to the back wall, clearing the coast with his eyes and searching for the best option. I saw the faces of those survivors and the fear was a mask so heavy they could have been sucked into the earth’s core with the weight. The children held the hands of the woman and buried their little red wet faces into her waist, hiding the body from their view.
“You are killing us,” she mumbled over at me.
“He killed you,” I snapped back, pointing at the limp, lifeless but breathing body of Marcus.
The loud crash of glass burst behind me as Bucket put his now blood-thirsty rebar into action. Bucket leapt out, and I made my way across. Before I took my leave, I turned back one last time I saw the nightmare I was avoiding with my escape. The tables and chairs, the water cooler, all began screeching painfully away from the door as the horde made their way in. Those things started to break through, glimpses of hands at first and then arms and finally heads. I saw the whites of their eyes, the deadness in their flesh and the clacking teeth hungry for the lodgers I was about to leave to their deaths. As the door finally gave way, I jumped and landed, falling against the wall below the window. Bucket already leant against it with his rebar held tight across his chest.
“You okay?” he asked, knowing the answer.
“No”
Before we could get ourselves together, mentally prepared, and physically aware enough to make our escape from the school grounds entirely. Another sound I should have expected began filling the air, taking all other noises, and turning them into irrelevancy. Cries and screams from the survivors we left behind for those hungry things. I could handle the adults screaming out. I had heard plenty of that since my capture and even more so since I was released like a bait rabbit into the new game board.
The children’s shrieking went on for longer than I wished. It was loud. That little girl with her chubby sweet red face cried out for her Mum, she begged for help. We sat there and listened until the screaming stopped. The shouts became moans. The struggling kicks and crashed turned into sloppy wet biting noises that could only paint a gruesome portrait of the consumption of those faces we looked into moments ago. Marcus was likely unconscious while they ate him. That was a saving grace. Perhaps Bucket did him a minor mercy. I wish I could forget her face. That little girl’s image will haunt me forever.
“We need to go before they come looking for more.”
Bucket nodded back, and we crawled on our hands and knees until out of sight of any windows. If the scent of human was indeed what attracted them, a mere guess at this stage, then I hoped the mass of dismantled flesh in the teachers’ lounge was enough to keep them distracted for some while. We jumped the fence and stood at the mouth of the street adjoining the school grounds. I looked into Bucket’s eyes and saw the same regret that was bubbling up in my stomach.
“Do you think they..” he began.
“Don’t think about it,” I stopped him in his tracks. “You see those houses, every one of them could be filled with more of those things. We need to keep our heads. Let’s keep going.”
Bucket stiffened his lip and shook off the weight he was bearing, threw his weapon over his shoulder, and gave me that now familiar nod of approval. We set off, hopeful of finding any path that might lead to the mythical safe-zone.
