It's Grim Up North (Book 2): The Island Page 3

  Once he’d stopped laughing at my expense he put his head down and got to work sewing each thin strip of material to the jacket. This took most of the afternoon and after putting the finishing touches to it, he handed me his spare Glock and said, ‘It’s locked and loaded mate. Safety’s on and ready to go.’

  ‘Fuck me. We’re really going to do this?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he replied.

  Darren picked up his bag and his ‘guitar’ case and left the room just as Andy entered.

  ‘Play nice boys,’ he quipped as he went out.

  ‘I’m sorry Andy,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, me too Carter. I was bang out of order saying what I did. Darren explained how much trust he has in you. Please don’t prove him wrongpal. I think he’s the only reason we’re all still alive. Watch his back out there. We’ll have food ready when you get back.’

  ‘Thanks Andy,’ I said as I left the room, weighed down heavily with the responsibility he had just laid upon my shoulders.

  Chapter 6

  I caught up with Darren down at the beach as he was loading the sailboat with the equipment he’d taken.

  ‘We’re taking the sailboat?’ I asked.

  Darren explained the reasons for taking it. Silence was the main one, and with no moving parts the boat was less likely to break down and set us adrift than the Zodiac. He was also planning on mooring it at the back of the island when we returned, in preparation for the next day, when we’d surely have visitors looking for tattoo boy. With no boat on the beach, they may not bother even searching the island. The chances were slim that they’d do such a thing, but even if they did, the boat may go unseen, enabling us to go undetected by hiding in one of the houses.

  Darren got dressed into his ghillie ensemble, as did I. He then applied generous amounts of camo paint to his face and told me to follow suit.

  ‘All aboard the Good Ship Lollipop, Miss Temple,’ Darren said jovially .

  ‘What the fuck you on about mate?’ I asked as I climbed into the boat.

  ‘Never mind. Game face, brother,’ he said seriously.

  Darren cast off and deftly manoeuvred the boat out into the causeway, steering the boat south.

  ‘Where are we going Darren? Amble harbour is the other way.’

  ‘Fuck that mate, I wouldn’t be seen dead in Amble before the apocalypse never mind after it. We’re going in the sneaky way. Mwaa ha ha ha.’ He said the last part in his best Dr Evil voice. ‘OK, game face now instead,’ He added.

  ‘Really mate, there’s something wrong with you,’ I said shaking my head and scanning the coastline for danger. Luckily the beach was clear of deedaz for as far as the eye could see.

  It took around fifteen minutes to reach the area we’d use to disembark. Darren expertly steered the boat in towards the beach, lowered the sail, lifted the removable keel and with a bump and a scrape we were ashore. Luckily the tide was just beginning to go in so we dragged the small sailboat up to the visible shoreline and tied it to a large boulder with the anchor line. Hopefully we’d have completed our task and be back at the beach before the tide had turned again.

  After I’d repeated scanning the beach for deedaz we slowly and stealthily made our way to the sand dunes, taking the utmost care of where we were stepping. The threat from crawly deedaz hidden in the long grass was a real danger.

  From the top of the dunes we had a clear view of the surrounding area heading inland. Slightly to our right, over the road that ran parallel to the beach, was a very large caravan site. Luckily for us it was fenced in, because the place was packed with the dead. Even luckier was that they were spread out around the north side of the caravan park away from us. The only reason I thought this could be was because of the bell trick Gippa’s men used to shepherd the dead around Amble. Obviously the noise from the bells in the town centre was not enough to create a stampede, but was just loud enough to pique their interest.

  There were a few loners on the outside of the caravan site but they too were far away to cause us any concern.

  ‘How the fuck are they not mulch?’ Darren whispered as he scanned the area with his magic scope.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘The fuckers should be compost by now. The heat from the summer we’ve had should have had some effect on their decomposition. Most of them look like they we’re only killed yesterday,’ Darren stated.

  He was right. The dead were unmistakably dead but the passing of time hadn’t seemed to deteriorate them at all. The only tell-tale signs that they’d been dead for any length of time were their tattered and threadbare clothes.

  ‘And where are the flies? They should be all over the fuckers,’ he added.

  He was right again. I’d never really noticed before but now he’d mentioned it, there had never been any flies in my house when it had been invaded by the hoard of dead. The only flies I’d seen were on flesh that had been torn from the living or corpses that hadn’t had the chance to turn. It was as if the buzzing insects had been warned to steer clear of the walking abominations.

  ‘I’ve no idea mate, but it doesn’t bode well that they aren’t falling to pieces. It looks like the fuckers are here to stay,’ I concluded.

  Darren shrugged his shoulders at this, replaced his scope in his bag and proceeded to pull up some of the long dry grass from the dunes. He then inserted it into the small incisions he’d made in my handmade ghillie combat jacket. I returned the favour and inserted grass into the readymade loops on his ghillie suit proper.

  It was amazing how well we blended into the dunes. With the light of late afternoon slowly dimming, we silently made our way out of the dunes and over the road, taking a wide berth of the holiday site.

  Chapter 7

  We travelled east alongside the southern boundary of a farmer’s field that adjoined the campsite until we came to a wall.

  Josh had earlier pointed out on one of my maps exactly where the compound was, which Darren then memorised and instructed me to do the same. It was approximately one mile inland. I already knew Amble quite well, as I’d plied my trade in its numerous bars and social clubs countless times over the years.

  The compound was situated on the southern outskirts of the town, and if we kept heading east we’d hit the main road that led into Amble and the industrial estate where the compound was housed.

  Before we crossed the wall, Darren did a situation report, or sit rep as he called it. It was to outline the operational parameters. He told me this was an information gathering exercise only. At no point were we to let the guards see us and at no point should I discharge my weapon unless one of us was in grave danger. Once we got close enough I was to stay at a safe distance while Darren got a little closer to look for weak points and ways into the modern-day fortress. It was dusk now, one of the best times of the day for sneaky shit, according to Darren. Then and dawn.

  Once over the wall we kept heading east towards a group of buildings that Darren knew to be the local sewage works. It was surrounded by a tall wire fence which was then enveloped by a copse of trees. We silently made our way through the small wooded area and, with the aid of some wire cutters that appeared from his rucksack, Darren cut a hole in the fence and we quietly squeezed through and into the works. Darren then took a few zip ties from his pocket and knitted them through the fence, thus shutting the door behind us. A stray deeda in the locality may have heard the rather loud snipping and twanging of the fence as it was being cut. The last thing we needed was to be bitten on the arse by a rogue uninvited guest.

  Darren led the way over to the large building in the centre of compound we were now in and searched the perimeter until he found what he was looking for. It was an access ladder that went all the way up to the third storey roof. Once up we belly crawled to the north-west corner of the building, which gave us an unobstructed view of Gippa’s fortified headquarters. The sun was just beginning to dip below the horizon, which created a shadow from the small shed-shaped structure on the
west side of the roof. This must have been the stairwell down into the building.

  We lay in the shadow. There was little chance our outline would be seen by the enemy guards in the compound. Darren retrieved his magic scope from his ruck sack, then passed it to me after he’d had a thorough look.

  The compound was exactly how Josh had described it. It was large, very large, and was surrounded by a ten-foot brick wall. It looked to have been some sort of haulage yard judging by the two large enclosed truck trailers that were parked inside.

  At each corner of the compound was a wooden tower with a small platform on top which then had a chest-high fence around it. Residing in each was a man.

  From the ground, the guards would go unseen if a stray deeda happened to pass by. The sentries that occupied these raised lookout posts were all dressed in what looked like hunting camo’s and were armed with scoped rifles.

  An assortment of buildings were scattered throughout the yard and, with the aid of the information Darren extracted from Josh, we worked out which building the women were in.

  Darren opened his ‘guitar case’ and, with the dexterity of a classical pianist, assembled a very large sniper rifle in seconds. He then took a couple of minutes sighting the gun, and with a few clicks of the knobs on the scope he set the beast out in front of me.

  ‘I’ve set the scope up to the distance of the compound. I’ll be approaching it as the crow flies from our position. You watch my back. If a deeda comes up behind me, press on this button twice.’ He handed me what looked like a small walkie-talkie.

  ‘Do not shoot it. I’ll take care of it,’ he said. ‘If I’m spotted by one of the guards, press the button four times. Again, do not shoot, unless I’m being shot at that is. That won’t happen though. They won’t see me.’ He said this with an air of positivity that I knew to be 100% true.

  Darren was a ghost. He had been since I met him. For such a big man he had the grace and stealth of a cat.

  He added, ‘But in the unlikely event I am spotted, just point at their heads and shoot.’

  I took the gun and hugged it into my shoulder and looked through the scope. The magnification was so good I could practically see the closest guard’s blackheads. I turned to Darren to whisper how impressed I was with the sights and he wasn’t there.

  ‘Sneaky bastard,’ I muttered under my breath.

  Chapter 8

  It was now quite dark, so I lay the gun down and picked up the magic scope, switching it to infrared so I could search for Darren. It took a moment to spot him down below and I watched as he deftly leapt the fence of the sewerage compound and disappeared into the copse of trees that surrounded my vantage point.

  I switched the binos to night vision and scanned the area for deedaz. About fifty metres out, on the waste ground between me and Gippa’s compound, was a lone deeda. I was about to double click the walkie-talkie when I remembered that I was only supposed to do so if a deeda was behind Darren. But where was he? He may indeed have been in front of it for all I knew. It had been a couple of minutes since I’d last saw him. I was just about to turn the scope back to infrared to pinpoint him when I suddenly spotted him rising slowly from the grass directly behind the deeda. In a flash he withdrew his knife from a sheath on his belt and drove if it into the back of the deeda’s neck at the base of its skull in an upward direction. As the deeda was falling, Darren caught it and gently lowered it to the floor. This all happened in the space of three seconds. Just before Darren disappeared back into the grass he turned to me and did an Arnold Schwarzenegger pose. Fuckin idiot.

  Now I knew where he was I kept the scope on night vision, scanning the area for more of the dead, checking the guards and watching Darren. After a minute of doing this and not seeing any movement from him, I thought that he must have dug himself in and was getting the information he needed from where he lay. That was, until I saw him at the base of the wall of Gippa’s compound. Fuck me he was good.

  I watched him skirt around the perimeter right under the nose of the unsuspecting guards, but then lost sight of him as he turned the corner of the north wall. The next thirty minutes were the longest of my life. After ten minutes the doubt started to creep in. After twenty minutes I decided he’d most definitely been caught and was being tortured. The thirty-minute mark came and went and I was beside myself with worry. Panicked thoughts ricocheted around my mind. Should I go and save him? I’d have to go back and get Andy to help me. How was I going to get back to the fucking island though? Never mind that, how was I going to get back to the boat, in the dark, on my own. I’d have to leave the rifle. There was no way I could disassemble that motherfucker. I scanned the area one last time and prepared for the terrifying prospect of a journey back to the island. I did understand the principles of sailing, but putting that into practice was an experience I wasn’t looking forward to. Cutting my teeth on a sailboat in the dark was a little too much for my nerves to take. Let alone the chance of being spotted on the radar of the destroyer that had been blowing the shit out of anything that floated on the open sea.

  I started hyperventilating. The ghillie suit felt like it was smothering me. And as I lay there on my back, breathing like a marathon runner on his last mile, I heard from the darkness, ‘Carter, are you having a wank you dirty bastard?’

  He was back. I started crying. Yep. Old softie pants started blubbering again.

  ‘Where the fuck have you been?’ I asked between sobs and gulps of air.

  ‘Aw mate, I didn’t know you cared,’ he said laughingly.

  ‘Fuck off mate, I thought they’d got you. I thought I’d have to come and look for you. If I couldn’t find you I thought I’d have to try and sail that boat by myfuckinself and get Andy to come back and help me rescue you.’

  ‘I’m sorry mate, why didn’t you just use the radio?’ he asked.

  The walkie-talkie. Bollocks. The look on my face set Darren off. The silent laughing and the tears running down his face set me off. And there we were again. Surrounded by countless dangers, dressed like fucking Ents from Lord of the Rings and giggling like two pre-school toddlers.

  When the laughter was out of our system, Darren’s mood changed instantaneously as he went on to explain why he was late. He’d returned via the main road and cut back through the fields. Something had made him curious about what he’d seen on the north side of gippa’s compound. He told me the road there had about twenty cars parked around the gates. The cars looked as though they’d been emptied of anything useful. All that was left in them were items of luggage and sentimental keepsakes of the previous owners. This perplexed Darren, so he decided to investigate the main road. He found what he was looking for.

  Just before the sign that welcomed travellers to ‘Amble – The friendliest port’, there was another sign, handwritten in big red letters: ‘SAFE ZONE – next right – all welcome’, with an arrow at the bottom pointing in the direction of the compound.

  Obviously the trusting and desperate owners of all the cars parked outside of the compound had been hooked and reeled in by the sign. The compound was nothing but a giant spider’s web that caught unsuspecting travellers and robbed them of their possessions and ultimately, if they were of no use, their lives. And if you were unlucky enough to be a pretty girl, you would face a fate worse than death.

  At hearing this, all of my misgivings about what Darren planned to do evaporated. These people needed to pay for what they had done and become. They needed to die!

  Chapter 9

  ‘My thoughts exactly,’ Darren said after I told him of my revelation.

  ‘How though?’ I asked. ‘Three men and one girl against a small army are pretty long odds, Darren.’

  ‘Don’t worry Carter mate. I’ve already got a bit of a plan for that,’ he replied confidently.

  While dismantling the sniper rifle Darren told me what other information he had discovered on his little sortie.

  He’d found the compound was as formidable as it looked. With two ways in
. The main steel double gate on the north side and a small pedestrian gate on the east side. The enclosed truck trailers were where the gang kept the supplies they’d stolen from the surrounding colonies and the passing traffic they’d ensnared with the sign on the main road.

  There were five buildings in total. The largest of which seemed to be a garage/workshop of some kind. The other large building was where the soldiers and guards lived, ate and slept. The brick, house-shaped building which had been offices at some point was situated directly in the centre of the compound and was where Gippa, his wife and his high-ranking buddies lived.

  That left the two buildings in the corner of the yard. This was where the prisoners were kept. The first was the size of a domestic garage, and the adjoining building was around the size of two sheds joined together. A few large vehicles were parked messily around the yard. A bus, a high-end camper van and a few brand new pickup trucks.

  Darren couldn’t be sure of enemy numbers and said that other than a week-long surveillance stakeout, we’d have to rely on the estimation Josh had given us.

  How Darren had acquired all this information perplexed me greatly. He hadn’t gained entry to the place, had he? When I asked his reply was, ‘No mate, I’m just really fucking sneaky.’ The skills Darren possessed amazed me and I again thanked Odin for sending him.

  Chapter 10

  The journey back to the boat was going well until we reached the beach road. The night had closed in completely now, but luckily the sky was more or less cloud free and the light of the moon was aiding our journey greatly.

  Darren had given me a little coaching in stealth technique before we left the island earlier that day. Walking heal to toe was the best way to travel silently. Also, slow and steady was the name of the game. Why I forgot all this when I laid eyes on a deeda that was shambling down the road towards us, escapes me. Instead of standing still I dropped to my belly as if I was playing Call Of Duty on the PlayStation, thinking there’d be less of me to see. As I did, the weight of my body snapped a long dry stick. The crack it made sounded like an explosion in the still tranquil night.