WalkerZ - A Zombie Apocalypse Story

Chapter 1 - Peaches and Dog Food

A zombie was staring through the window of the old camper van.

Merryn rose to her feet, boots already on, rifle handy, rucksack packed and ready to go. Moving with care in the confines of the old Type 2 Volkswagen, she studied her surroundings. The van was a darker blue than her parents' old camper had been, and the canvas pop top had still worked when she put it up, remaining dry despite the overnight rain. But the doors creaked, and the side door was a slider, guaranteed to make a noise. Merryn paused with her hand on the door handle and turned back to face the zombie. Dead white eyes continued to stare through the window and through her.

It was just one.

Merryn turned a full three-sixty inside the van. She had a clear field of vision of about fifty yards to the woods beyond the car park. Nothing else was moving or making any sound that she could hear through the canvas side of the roof.

The single shot of her handgun took the walker through the forehead, the grey sunken face collapsing from view as the spume of jellylike blood and brains ballooned from its head, the side window of the van exploding outwards in sprinkling shards of glass. She wrinkled her nose in disgust as the smell hit her, the zombie hitting the tarmac and leaf mold with a dull thud. But as the birds in the nearby trees took flight, a chorus of stuttering moans broke the post gunshot silence.

Merryn swore, rammed her pistol back in its holster, grabbed her kit and bolted from the camper van, the old sliding door screeching in rusty protest as the hunting call of the walkers rose from the trees. More answered from a different part of the woods, and Merryn altered her course to steer away from as many of them as she could.

As she ran, something dug into her lower back and she grimaced in pain. The tin of peaches stashed at the back of one of the camper van's cupboards had been an unexpected joy, but now it was going to become annoying if she had to run too far.

Merryn stopped and listened. A few moans sounded, all from behind her and she took a moment to push things around, hitch her pack up and tighten the straps.

"Time to go," she muttered. "Those peaches are mine."

~

An hour later, she stopped and looked at the valley below her, her breathing even but heavy as her lungs sought to replenish the oxygen in her system. She'd quickly lost the deadheads, their shambling canter no match for her long-distance runner stamina.

From a granite outcrop, she looked through her binoculars at the city in the valley below, eyes alert for movement of any sort as she traced the roads from the outskirts to the coast and along to her final destination, the naval dockyard.

Satisfied she was out of any imminent danger, Merryn laid her rifle on the bare rock in easy reach, removed her rucksack, and unpacked a collapsible gas stove and some rations. As the pan bubbled to the boil she hand-cranked the power on her clockwork radio.

"Hello Control? This is Scout 2, do you read me?"

"Morning Scout 2, Mal here, how's it going?"

Merryn grinned, Mal was one of her favourite operatives, calm, unflappable and usually up for a cuppa and a chat in the old army canteen. "All good here Mal, although I almost came unstuck this morning when I had to shoot a zombie before breakfast."

"He forgot the milk?"

"Aye, the service was terrible. Although I did find a tin of peaches last night which was cool. This morning the woods were full of zombies though so I had a bit of an early morning jog."

"Peaches? Nasty. Now tinned pineapple, that's more like it. I love tinned pineapple. You shot him with a gun?"

"Yes, my crossbow broke a couple of days ago, otherwise it wouldn't have been so noisy."