Love Bites ~ Craig of the Dead au ~ Tricia x Karen fan fiction [COMPLETE]

33

A few hours later, I'm off my drip, geared up and ready to travel.
With a gun on my back and a bat in hand, I'm able to protect Karen and myself.

Out of some scrap materials, I made a weapon for Karen. I'm not quite sure what to call it though - it's a sheet of metal tied to a long wooden pole with some old but sturdy rope I found hanging from a ceiling.
It's good for swinging and good for smacking the head off a zombie.

Christophe and his gang are all geared up with military style guns and long distance radios in case we get separated. They're split into 'squads' which are named after important people in French history, and have the whole journey planned out ahead of time and different protocols for all kinds of things that could go wrong.

Some of Kenny's group feel well enough to go out on the mission, but the majority of them are too wiped out and will stay in the mole hill, under Alana's close supervision.

"Are we ready to go yet?" Christophe asks, popping his head into the large garage style area, lighting yet another cigarette, "We haven't got all day and I want to be there by tomorrow morning so we can be back before nightfall."

"Nearly, we're just assigning people to their vehicles and deciding who will drive." A tall girl (that I think belngs to Marvin's group) explains.

With a groan, Christophe drags himself into the garage and starts pointing at people, "you lot get into the minibus. You guys can go in the Range Rover, you bastards can.... get into that thing."

He stops right in front of me and gives me a look. Blowing smoke out of the corner of his mouth so it doesn't go right into my face, he raises an eyebrow thoughtfully, as if thinking about where to put me, despite the fact that there's only one vehicle left.

"Can you drive?" He finally asks.

"Do bears shit in the woods?" I ask sarcastically.

He thinks for a second. Maybe I should've just said yes.

"Okay then. You can get in the car and take me, your girlfriend and her sibling out. We're setting off as soon as possible so you've got to be ready ASAP."

Without giving us a chance to say anything else, he wanders off.

Kenny takes Karen's weapon and makes sure it is able to fit into the car before we get in. Luckily it isn't too long so it can lean against the spare seat in the back.

Once their weapons are in the back, they sit down and buckle themselves in. I get a thumbs up from one of the other drivers, meaning we're all good to go once Christophe is in my car, so I quickly get myself settled into the driver's seat and wait for the angry Frenchman to return.

After around five minutes, he wanders back over to the car and sits in the front passenger seat. He gives the signal to someone over the radio and within a few minutes the vehicles in front of us begin moving.

Ahead of us is a huge garage door that is being pulled up by a team of buff women. It's almost pitch black outside, the only lights being the moon and the headlights from all of the vehicles we're bringing along with us.

At first we only start crawling ahead, but it doesn't take long for the rest of the vehicles to have exited the mole hill. As we approach the large door, I realise that we're underground and there's a huge ramp leading upwards to the outside.

"We've been underground this whole time?" Karen gasps, staring in disbelief with her hands on the car window.

"Why do you think it's called the mole hill, princess?" Kenny chuckles.

Slowly, we drive up the ramp until we're outside. The cool air hits us through one of the open windows and we all shudder instantaneously. Christophe quickly rolls it down before we freeze to death.

"Mouse to mole, mouse to mole," A voice comes in through the radio, "fat green bastard up ahead. Do we plough through it?"

"Just keep going. We're stopping for as little as possible."

"Stop them!" Karen suddenly shouts, lunging at Christophe to try and grab the radio, "they're full of poison gas that'll kill us if we drive through it."

Christophe holds the radio out of her reach and a look of disgust covers his face, like he's looking at crap on the bottom of his shoes.

"Jesus Christ, calm your tits!" He yelps. He glares at her, then says over the radio, "Change of plans, mouse. I want you to go around it, even if it means taking an alternate route. Apparently these guys are more dangerous than we thought."

The vehicle in front of us begins turning to another road, away from the bloater (or a fat green bastard as they call it), and I follow them.

This road is a lot narrower than the one we were heading down earlier so tree branches scrape along the windows and leaves latch onto the wheels.

Other than a few radio conversations, the drive is really quiet. Karen makes a few comments about wondering who lived in the neighbourhoods we pass, but we fail to make conversation.

My eyes fight to keep open as I grip the steering wheel tightly. We cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time thanks to the relatively empty roads.
Occasionally we have to drive over zombies or human corpses to continue, but we don't stop for anything.

Until we saw him.

As we approach what appears to be an old gated community, the vehicle in the lead suddenly stops, bringing everyone to a halt.

A head pokes out of a window of the vehicle in front of us but nobody gets out.

"What's going on?" Karen mumbles sleepily, lifting her tired head from her brother's lap.

"We're just stopping for a second, sweetie. I'm sure it's nothing." I tell her.

Christophe raises the radio to his mouth, "Mole to rabbit, the fuck are you guys doing? Keep going."

It's a moment or two before someone replies.

"There's a guy in the middle of the road," 'Rabbit' replies. He sounds panicked, "Like, a grown man."

"What?"

"A grown ass man is stood in the middle of the road," Rabbit almost yells, his voice getting higher with each word, "I'm talking mid-forties, fifties maybe. And he's..."

There's some kind of interference and Rabbit's voice cuts out, replaced by a loud muffled growling noise.

Kenny's head snaps up.

"Oh fuck. I know that noise."

"What is it?" Christophe demands, turning around in his seat.

"It's one of those fucked up dog things. Some kind of experiment gone wrong. They're fucking terrifying. We've gotta turn around before someone dies."

Kenny grabs the radio and yells through all of the muffled growling, "Kenny to Rabbit or Mouse or whoever the fuck is on this line, we're turning around and heading back. You hear me? Turning around. We aren't safe. Nobody is safe with one of those things around. We're turning around NOW."

The growling is replaced by an ear splitting screech, like a million chihuahuas screamed all at once. Karen immediately covers her ears.

"What the fuck?" Christophe grabs the radio, "Abandon all protocol. Save yourselves!"

I turn in my seat to look out of the back window to see if the people in the vehicle behind us have received our message through the weird interference.

My heart drops and I scream.

Everyone stares out of the window.

Panic spreads among them.

The vehicle behind us is covered in blood.

From the inside.

Each person who was inside is now dead.

Their shredded corpses lie on the road.

Empty.

The roof has been ripped off and abandoned in some bushes. A large black head is poking out of the vehicle, a hand wedged between its jaws.