Zombies in Cumbria part 5

    I am  not in the mood for a long opening, so I'll be quick. My dad became a zombie. Then my mum became a Runner. She then killed my sister. Me and my zwillingsbruder then ran away, although I'm not sure where to other than somewhere in the woods north of our village. At the point we restart our story, we are surrounded by a group of armed scary people.

 "Who are these people?" I asked my brother as I peered round at the dirty unwashed faces surrounding me. As I said before, these people did not look friendly, they looked... unstable... and armed. There were about 13 of them, I think, gathered in a circle around me and my brother, they all held whatever weapons they could get their hands on: clubs, bats, crowbars, guns, anything that could be used to kill zombies. One person even had a compound bow, with arrow knocked, ready to draw. There was a real mix of people there, as far as I could see, of varying builds, ages and heights, but all were skinny and all were filthy. The one with the bow was particularly dirty, like something out of mezolithic Albion.

   "These are friends. They are survivors, just like us." Raiatasno:re said. I didn't know this then, but at the time, me and my brother hadn't survived much. Never even had to kill a zombie. Well, weren't those the days of innosence, however it is that you spell that word.

   "How do you know these are our friends?" I whisperes to him. I was thinking something along the lines of any sudden movement of loud noise might set them off, or something. Powder kegg springs to mind, or a tinder box.

   "I've been meeting with them for a while now, here, to be ready if our home became unsafe. Planning ahead is a good thing, you should try it sometime." I couldn't figure out when he'd had the time to come and meet a band of who at the time I could only describe as free range nutters. "Wait here, I've got something for you." He then stood up and left the clearing for the woods, leaving me alone surrounded by the Scary Ones.

   They ragarded me in silence, and I did the same. I have to say, it was probably one of the most awkward moments in my life, even more so than the time I walked up behind my friend and jabbed him in the sides, only for him to turn around and turn out to be a complete stranger. From that experience I'm only glad that I never met that person again. But this time, I couldn't just walk away, not without my brother, so we just sat there in silence staring at each other, non of us even attempting to start a conversation because that would have been just too weird, apparently. 

   Fortunately, my brother wasn't gone long, he re emerged from the woods and he was carrying a HUGE ruksack that stretched from his knees to the top of his head and he staggered slightly under its weight. I fugure he must have had it buried somewhere in the woods because his hands and the rucksack were covered in dirt. That and he was holding a spade and greeted me by saying, "Kiwi, remind me never to bury any of my stuff ever again. Oh, and by the way, I have a present for you." Such deduction skills I possess, sometimes I wonder why I never wanted to become a detective. Ha.

   "A gift, eh? What is it, pray tell?" I asked. I would like to say that I'm not normally that wierd, but the truth is, I am. I'm about 700 or so years out of date at least by the way I speak and I like to wear a grey victorian flatcap with a hole in the side that I got from Beamish (an open-air museum out in Geordie-land). My brother weren't much better, he either liked to wear a waist coat or a stripy blazer. I told you we had a dubious sense of fashion. Anyway, when I asked he dropped by bag from his back and opened it up to reveal a (my) battered old cricket bat called "The Verminator". So called because when my cat cought a mouse or something my dad would have to finish it off with the cricket bat to spare the creature the pain that is usually put throught my cat's victims. He handed me the bat before pulling out a baseball bat for himself. Well, I guess violance is on the agenda, then I remember thinking as he continued to pull out things that would be useful in a fight, including about a dozen pairs of shin pads. Later on he told me that we could use them as armour to protect us from zombie bites. A good idea in theory but doesn't work nearly so well in practice. He also pulled things out like, um, healmets that ended up being used as bowls more often than as head protection, and an awful lot of food, all canned, stuff that could survive being buried for several weeks in the woods, I spose, looking back on it, but all I noticed at the time was that he seemed to have packed every type of food I hated. I think in extreme situations you seem to notice some strange stuff. I personally wouldn't have called any of those things gifts, but it's the thought that counts.

   "This is all that we'll need to survive a zombie-apocalypse!" He said, with his arms spread to show all the stuff he's laid out, wearing a stupid grin from ear to ear he was so proud of himself. Although I have to admit I was slightly impressed by his fore-thought, I skill I did and do not possess. As I waited, his smile faded, and after about, um, 5 seconds he just stood up and said, "C'mon, I'll introduce you to the group." He lifted me by the elbow and took me round the group, telling me the names of all the Scary Ones. I can't remember many of them; I didn't get much time to get to know them. I can remember the boy with the bow was Andy Williamson, there was Suzy Gray and Tom Smith. The youngest was a little lad called Paul Hutchins, he was about 8 and a complete brain box. Ugh, I'm trying to remember names... There was, um, Alex (as in Alexandra) Uffhold and Jamal, but I can't for the life of me remember his last name... Chi chi, what was it?... Ah well... There were a few others, but you'll hear more of them later.

   Wow, this is taking longer than expected, sorry about this being so long, this was only suppost to be a short account but fate conspired against me, it seems. I'll make the rest brief.

   After introductions they told me all I needed to know about zombies and living in the woods, although I forgot most of it almost immidiatley, they told me to never sleep on the ground or a zombie may stunble upon you, so you should sleep in trees but when you do to remember to tie yourself on or you may roll of your branch in night. Ouch. I've relied on that more than once to stop me falling to my death. We ate dinner together, a lovely watery stew of various root vegetable and more-than-slightly-stale bread. Yum. We talked and got to know each other, turns out they weren't so scary, unless you happened to be a zombie or rabbit, most of them were our age with similar stories to tell. After dinner we went to find some good trees to sleep in, but because we couldn't all sleep in one we had to spread out over a large area, but fortunatley that had already thought of a way round that by communicating by walkie talkie. But that night we managed to find sutabled trees that were all farly close together, no more than 10 yards apart at most, which turns out to be a very bad idea. I was in a big oak tree that night (oak trees are my favourite) and it was about May time, I think, so all the blue bells were out, making the woods very beautiful. Now, I used to toss and turn a lot in my sleep (and talk) so that night I was glad that I was tied to my tree when I rolled off my branch and found myself hanging upsidedown (the rope had slipped to my knees) a few feet above about a dozen zombies.