It's Grim Up North (Book 2): The Island Read online

  It’s Grim Up North 2

  The Island

  Copyright © 2017 Sean Wilkinson

  All rights reserved

  No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Under no circumstances may any part of this book be photocopied for resale.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity between characters and situations within its pages and places and persons, living or dead, is unintentional and coincidental.

  Foreword

  Once again, I'd like to thank you all for buying the second book of the IGUN series.

  I'd also like to thank all those who left a review on Amazon for book 1. I was overwhelmed and to be honest, surprised with the positive feedback and remarks. Thank you.

  The majority of book 2 was written in seven days and took another month or so to polish. I could have added another fifteen thousand words to fill it out and get my word count up but I decided not to.

  As with book one, book two stomps along at breakneck pace and the time it takes to read, is about the same time it takes to watch a movie. I like that about it.

  Again, it's no best seller, won't win any prizes and I'll never make any money from it but from the start, it had always been a 'just for fun' venture.

  I love the characters and the camaraderie between them and have drawn upon my own relationships with my very close friends to portray Carter and Darren's friendship and dark banter.

  My Auntie wrote a review on Amazon and mentioned that the lead character was 'the authors alter ego.' I'd like to dispel that claim here and now. It's not my alter ego.

  The similarities to my house, profession and my inclination to cry a lot are uncannily and purely coincidental.

  Once more I'd like to thank, the very talented Jo Kemp for proof reading again and my faithful Guinea pigs that read book two's rough draft.

  Chris Scott, LL, Auntie Paula and the guy I'm about to introduce.

  Mr Bryan W Haddock.

  My technical advisor and go to man, for all things, especially military. He has been on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and has always been there to answer the multitude of questions I've bombarded him with these past couple of months. Cheers mate. X

  Now that's all out of the way, I'll let you go and read the book.

  Enjoy guys!!! X

  It’s Grim Up North 2

  The Island

  Chapter 1

  It had only been a little over six weeks since the world had changed. Six weeks since the majority of the country had died and got back up. Six weeks of horror, fear, heartache, despair and blood. Six weeks of running, hiding, surviving.

  It seemed like a lifetime ago. So much had happened since that fateful night when God and Satan had shut the gates to heaven and hell and had decided to turn the dead away.

  Those early days of survival still haunted my thoughts whenever I had a moment to myself. Seeping in like the tentacles of some deep-sea creature, squeezing my brain to extract the terrible memories it now held. The slaughtered neighbours, the intrusion into my home by the dead, the isolation of the loft, the destructive thoughts of self-harm, the terrifying escape through my estate, the harrowing journey to the island and then everything that had occurred since I’d arrived there.

  All of the near misses and close shaves shown in my mind’s eye, like a drive-in movie, projected in glorious technicolor, reminding me that luck alone had saved me.

  The luckiest thing, and the only good that came from those six weeks, was meeting Darren. If I was a religious man, I’d have sworn he was sent by the gods. The man was an unflappable, exquisite killing machine with the heart of ten lions. Impeccably trained and absolutely lethal. The best the British armed forces had produced. I had no doubt in my mind, that if the mood took him, he could clear this whole world of the dead, single-handedly.

  But the man I’d met two days ago didn’t seem to be with us anymore. Yes, Darren was still physically there but he was most definitely not the person I’d come to know and trust. The rage and anger that took him was positively terrifying. He stood there, with the morning sun at his back, towering over the two cowering pirates, glaring at them, his piercing green eyes filled with fire and brimstone.

  He wasn’t a huge man by any means, but had a presence and aura that could intimidate the bravest of men. We were similar in height at around six-foot tall and were both follically challenged, but that’s where the similarities ended. While I was lean and not particularly well muscled, Darren was stocky and looked to be chiselled from granite.

  All of this, and the fact that the veins on his face and neck swelled, threatening to explode at any minute, prompted Damien, the smaller of the pirates, to let loose the contents of his bladder. Darren was a scary-looking fucker at the best of times and If I hadn’t shared the past two days with him and experienced his friendship and wicked sense of humour, I’d most definitely have pissed my pants with fear too.

  I could tell by Andy and Bobby’s faces that they were just as worried as I was about where this was all heading. I hoped and prayed the old Darren was still in there somewhere and that he hadn’t mentally snapped, with the realisation that this new world had monsters in it that were worse than the walking dead. Heaven help those whose moral compass had veered them off course.

  In a calm and collected voice, that far from matched the look on his face, he asked Josh, the taller and drier of the two. ‘How many?’

  ‘H-h-how many what?’ He stammered in reply.

  ‘How many women are in the compound?’ This time asking with a voice full of venom. ‘How many fucking women have you watched being carried away and defiled? How many times have you sat there and done nothing while they were taken and raped, you fucking cowards?’ He shouted this, spittle flying from his mouth and covering the pirates’ flinching faces.

  If what they’d told us was true, and the two young fearful boys were indeed captives of tattoo boy’s group, Darren knew full well that they couldn’t have done anything to stop the atrocities. Doing so would have been tantamount to suicide. Our leader needed to vent and the boys were the closest target. The revelations he’d learned from Josh regarding the women had obviously set a fire in him and I was becoming concerned about how Darren would quench the flames.

  I decided to step in before he did something violent to the two young men. As I placed a gentle hand on his shoulder he spun, grabbed me by the collar and pinned me against the wall. His face a wash of pure unmitigated fury, so much so, I honestly feared for my safety. Once he saw the fear in me, the intent in his eyes disappeared as quickly as it had taken him.

  ‘Sorry mate,’ he sighed, letting go and placing an apologetic hand on my shoulder. And, just like that, my sphincter relaxed and Darren was back.

  He spent the next hour interrogating the boys about every detail of this new threat. The answer to Darren’s question was eight.

  Eight young women were just over two miles away from where we were standing. Being passed between thirty men to be abused and violated. Wasn’t the world bad enough with the deedaz in it? Why was I surprised? History is riddled with stories of how the strong prey on the weak. The surprise was that it could happen in this day
and age.

  Darren squeezed the teenagers for every ounce of information they had, with Josh providing most of the answers. Damien didn’t say much at all, obviously still embarrassed by the puddle of piss he was sitting in.

  Darren carried out the interrogation with an expertise and preciseness that astounded me. Striking fear into the boys one minute and then softening the next. Playing good cop and bad cop simultaneously. Bombarding them with question after question then repeating the questions in a slightly different way. Probing and prodding, trying to ascertain whether the information they were giving was the truth. Never letting up at all.

  By the end of it the boys were both physically and mentally exhausted, as were Bobby, Andy and I. Darren seemed to be the only one unaffected by the thorough grilling he’d dished out and finished the interrogation with an offer for the boys. They were free to stay with us if they chose to do so, but he added that they would be treated as enemies until they’d earned our trust. If they chose to leave they would remain as captives until Darren deemed it safe enough to let them go.

  He took a knee in front of the boys and looked each of them in the eye. His final words on the matter were, ‘Any hostile actions by you, while on this island, will result in dire repercussions.’ At this he stood, walked into the house and dragged out tattoo boy’s cooling corpse by his foot, then unceremoniously dumped him in front of Josh and Damien. The boys looked at the body and its caved-in head, then at each other and then up at Darren as he waited patiently for affirmation that they understood exactly what the warning meant. They both nodded their heads vigorously in agreement to his terms.

  Chapter 2

  The information we’d gleaned from the boys was invaluable. The compound was heavily fortified and guarded around the clock. A lookout was placed on each corner and would be changed every six hours or so.

  Inside this modern-day castle lived at least thirty men and one woman. That woman was the leader’s wife.

  His name was Gippa. Again, this name seemed familiar to me but no matter how much I searched my cannabis-addled brain I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember where I’d heard it.

  His gang had killed the families of the women they now owned, as they’d done with Josh and Damien’s respective parents. They had also stripped them of all their worldly possessions.

  The eight abducted girls were being held in one of the small sheds inside the compound. The shed was locked from the outside and opened only when the merge food the girls were allowed was passed into them or when one of the hierarchy wanted to pleasure themselves at the expense of the poor women’s honour.

  Gippa, who rarely left the safety of the compound, believed himself to be warlord of the surrounding area. He had bestowed the title of general to his right-hand man. Stag, as he liked to be known, was described by Josh as being a small, skinny little fucker.

  I found out later that Stag was the man who gave the order to kill Josh and Damien’s parents. They’d died simply for refusing to kneel at the feet of Stag when ordered to do so. This sleight was rewarded with a bullet to the head for all of them by one of Stag’s underlings.

  Stag undoubtedly suffered from the affliction of little man syndrome. We learned, however, that what he lacked for in size, he made up for in cunning and sadism. Many of the injuries the poor abducted women had sustained had been inflicted by him. Darren’s hackles visibly raised when he learned of this.

  The five men below Stag were the muscle of the operation. Before the apocalypse they’d been guests of her majesty at the local prison situated around six miles from the compound. They’d all been bestowed the rank of lieutenant. The myth that surrounded them was used to keep the surrounding survivor settlements in a constant state of fear and appeasement.

  Three of the lieutenants were brothers and had been kept in different wings of the prison. On the outside they’d been the hired thugs of a well-known crime king pin in London, and had single-handedly made sure that all of their former employer’s competition were six feet under ground. The powers that be were well aware of the notorious brothers and their cleansing of most of the mafia-type gangs in London but always had insufficient evidence to convict the psychotic family. Instead they were arrested on a trumped-up charge of tax evasion. The police had done an ‘Al Capone’ to get them off the streets, hence their incarceration in to Northumberland’s low-security prison.

  When the outbreak happened, it had spread like wildfire throughout the facility. The brothers had fought their way to each other with their bare hands and then went about clearing the prison of the dead, section by section. Along the way they picked up the other two muscled lieutenants, who were in the process of a last stand in the exercise yard when they were found.

  The absconded fugitives were walking north when Gippa and his wife happened upon them, picked them up and enrolled them into his army.

  On arriving at his home town of Amble, he sought out his old school friend Stag and proceeded to build his new draconian society from the safety of the compound they’d found and claimed.

  Fear and extortion were used to gain supplies from the terrified survivors throughout the local area.

  The men below the lieutenants were classed as the soldiers. They had all earned their rank and proved their worth by killing and pillaging. They could earn privileges like better food, alcohol and time with the women by performing duties well, showing loyalty to the leadership, informing on fellow soldiers’ wrongdoings and finding and securing women and supplies. Their main tasks were to scout the local area for usable items, find new survivors and tax the local survivor colonies. Uncooperative colonies would be revisited with the lieutenants in tow. They’d either cooperate or die.

  The guards consisted of members that were on the lower rungs of the ladder to full membership, although ascension of the ladder did happen, it happened rarely. They were deemed the weakest of group and were really only one step away from being prisoners themselves. All of the guards were tasked with the menial jobs, cooking, cleaning and of course guarding. Elevation up the ladder could be gained in different ways. Being large, ruthlessness and willing to kill those who were deemed unworthy or of no use, were all looked upon as desirable traits. They could also be promoted if they challenged a ‘soldier’ and won in a bout of unarmed combat. Not to the death, but it may as well have been. Injuries received in this new world with no medical facilities or medicine, would inevitably turn into a death sentence.

  Josh and Damien had seen such a gladiatorial contest through the small window of the shed they had resided in. The desperate and underfed guard had died two days later, having been bested by one of the much healthier soldiers. With no one to take care of him and nothing to treat his obvious internal injuries, he’d been left to pass away, alone and in pain.

  Gippa had, without doubt, seen far too many Mad Max films. He was obviously a very sick man and I really couldn’t understand why his wife had stood by him and watched, while he’d become Ivan the fucking Terrible. Well now Ivan had a nemesis. His name was Darren.

  Josh told us that there were another two tax collectors that had left the compound with them that morning and had split up with them at the harbour.

  They had been tasked to head inland along the River Coquet to collect Gippa’s tribute from a colony based up stream. The large secluded farmhouse they lived in was situated next to a small dam and surrounded by a large wood. The colony supplied dairy products and meat from the animals that were kept in a secure smallholding next to the farm. The long single-track road that connected the farm to the main road that led to the village of Warkworth had been barricaded and seamlessly disguised to look like part of the forest, protecting them from the dead and other marauders.

  Darren was puzzled about how the group had made it to through Amble to the harbour without being eaten alive. Josh explained that Stag had come up with the idea of how to move and manipulate the dead to wherever the needed them to go. A series of bells had been situated around Amble. With
a silenced air rifle a person was able to navigate the streets with relative safety by firing at said bells. The dead in the vicinity would be drawn to the bell like a moth to a flame, enabling the marksman to nip past and gain a clear shot to the next strategically placed bell. This would be repeated until they reached their goal. Though the technique was far from 100% effective, it was thought safe enough by Gippa, when he ordered his soldiers to use it.

  This method was also used whenever curious deedaz happened upon their compound. Bells scattered around the surrounding area would draw them away and without any other stimulation the walking dead would eventually wander off.

  Tattoo boy, who had worked his way up the pecking order of the soldiers, had declined additional support when he’d been ordered to do the weekly check on the local island colonies. Instead, he chose to take just the two abducted teenage boys to ferry him to the islands in the sailboat. Obviously with going alone he’d have first pickings of any supplies that were to be taken in exchange for ‘protection’ and he’d have a chance of maybe finding new women for their satanic harem. Soldiers that found and brought suitable women into the fold, were granted the medieval law of jus primae noctis, which translates to ‘law of the first night’. This incentive entitled the evil fucks to be the first to abuse and rape the newly abducted. Again, Darren visibly shuddered with anger at hearing the way these poor women were being mistreated and molested.

  The boys weren’t brought along only to sail the boat. The journey was also meant to toughen them up, as a kind of initiation to see if they had what it took to become one of them and be promoted to the rank of guard, instead of prisoner.

  After running the gauntlet through Amble using the bell trick to get to the harbour, they’d sailed to the island, never thinking they were in any danger once they’d come ashore. Little did they know the island had been claimed by new residents and one of them was the God of War.