Things wouldn't be interesting if they didn't go wrong once in a while!
The first Kindle release of The Undead 29 was missing a chapter. I've no idea how that happened. The file uploads were correct. The only thing I can assume is that an error was made during formatting.
But anywho. There was meant to be another chapter between when the women in the group decide to get drunk - and then when they set off the next day.
The Kindle version has been updated. You can delete your existing copy and re-download it to get the missing chapter.
Or you can read it here...
The Undead 29. Hindhead Part 1
(Chapter 6)
Thursday
Day Thirty-Five
The men in the kitchen making porridge in a big vat because it was the easiest solution after failing to figure out how to get the stove on and find the bacon and eggs, and things Marcy and Paula used for breakfasts.
‘Okay. I am starting to think we might actually be sexist,’ Howie says as the others murmur in a manly way of agreeing.
‘The porridge is sticking,’ Danny says, being the nominated stirrer of the porridge.
‘Turn it down a touch,’ Chef Dave says.
‘What’s a touch?’ Danny asks.
‘Until you see a visible reduction in the bubbling,’ Chef Dave says as Danny follows the instructions.
‘Have we got any jam?’ Henry asks. ‘Any jam? Jam anywhere? One should have jam in porridge.’
‘I’m sure I read that in a book,’ Roy says. ‘Something about space.’
‘Space Jam?’ Frank asks.
‘No, that was a movie,’ Roy says.
‘Imagine Roy’s story being a movie,’ Mo says. ‘Who’d play Sophia?’
‘Monica Bellucci,’ Frank says as several of the younger lads look blank.
‘Florence Pugh,’ Nick says as the older men look blank.
‘Scarlett Johansson,’ Blowers says as they nod and agree in a manly way of agreeing.
‘But what about that jam?’ Henry asks as they set to finding jam and bowls, and spoons and then making coffee, and heading out into the canteen with steaming bowls of porridge and jam.
‘Might be a long day,’ Clarence says after taking his first mouthful. ‘Reckon there’ll be some hangovers,’ he adds when a few of the lads frown quizzically.
‘That was a lot of wine,’ Howie says.
‘That was a lot of noise,’ Henry adds.
‘They flaked out around the firepit,’ Clarence says. ‘And they ate all the biscuits. I only had a packet of malted milks left on my watch.’
‘Jesus,’ Blowers says with a dark tut.
‘I know. And the dog and the horse stayed with them.’
‘Aw, were you lonely?’ Frank asks, earning a few low chuckles. ‘But yeah. My advice. Tread carefully today. Carmen can be a bitch when she’s hungover. Which I would say to her face, but not when she’s actually hung over.’
‘I’ll take it easy on drill then,’ Blowers says as they all, once more, agree in a manly way of agreeing.
‘What was going on anyway?’ Clarence asks. ‘I thought we’d all gone to bed. Marcy came and got Paula.’
‘Dunno,’ Howie says. ‘Charlie told Marcy she needed her. That was early though, and she seemed like a bit angry. Not angry. No. Something though,’ he adds as Cookey drops his eyes.
‘Tappy went out for a pee and never came back,’ Nick says. ‘I went to check and saw the sign up, and heard them laughing.’
‘What did it say?’ Blowers asks.
‘I don’t know! I’m dyslexic,’ Nick says in a way that makes them all chuckle.
‘Fuck the fuck off,’ Howie says, having seen the same sign when he came down from watch, and saw Marcy’s handwriting, and heard the laughing and clinking of bottles, and also what sounded like something electrical in the bathroom. ‘But yeah, wise words, don’t piss Paula off, or Marcy. We’ll get some coffee and porridge into them and let them recover.’
‘They’re coming,’ Mo says, nodding to the stairs as the men all fall silent and turn to see the figures coming slowly into view. Heads down and low groans sounding out.
‘Fuck me, it’s like day one,’ Howie murmurs, earning another round of manly murmuring in agreement. ‘God. This is gonna be painful.’
They reach the top of the stairs and turn towards the canteen, all bunched together and rubbing faces and bellies until Tappy sniggers and sets them off, with their heads rising and their strides opening as they sweep into the room to a stunned silence. All of them smiling brightly and laughing at the faces of the men staring up from their bowls of porridge and jam.
‘Morning!’ Charlie says with a big grin. ‘Coffee, ladies?’
‘What the fuck!’ Nick says, his face slowly splitting into a huge grin.
‘What?’ Charlie asks innocently as the women dump their kit on the weapons table and head for the coffee machine. The men in silence. Staring in shock, with eyes going wide.
Charlie’s stubbled head shaved into a mohican strip running down the middle of her skull, and strong, bright pink around her eyes and shaped out onto her temples.
Tappy with her head shaved at the sides and her hair held back in a tail. Her make up the same as Charlie’s. Strong pink around her eyes that sweeps out to her cheeks. Edgy and styled with a Mad Max vibe.
Carmen’s head shaved completely, with only a slight stubble showing, and even Marcy and Paula with one side of their heads shaved down to stubble. And all of them in the same strong pink eye make-up.
‘Why pink?’ Blowers asks, grinning with delight at the sight of them.
‘Cos we have to wear the pink berets,’ Tappy says as the women smile and chuckle from the memory of the previous night.
‘It’s got to be pink make-up!’ Tappy said as they drank wine and watched Marcy use battery operated clippers to shave Carmen’s head.
‘Too girly!’ Charlie said, staring at herself in the mirror and running a hand along her newly cut strip.
‘I love pink!’ Marcy said and took a big gulp of wine from the bottle, and passed it back to Paula.
‘No, pink! Cos of the berets. We’ve got wear them for a week, remember?’ Tappy said.
‘We’ve been here for nearly a week,’ Paula said.
‘Oh, they’re not getting away with it that easy,’ Marcy said. ‘My week means being outside for a week.’
‘Okay then. Pink,’ Charlie said. ‘But bold.’
‘Bold or bald?’ they all asked.
‘BOLD!’ she said, and the laughter rang out across the basement, and they drank more wine until it seemed an awesome idea to also shave their heads. Tappy went all in with both sides. Carmen did the whole lot. Marcy was never going to sacrifice her gorgeous hair but also really want to join in, so she did one side, which Paula loved and changed her mind because there was no way in hell she was going to shave her head, but one side seemed to be okay.
Charlie didn’t mention Cookey. Or Maddox. In fact, they didn’t mention men at all. They just drank wine, which the infection inside of them detected as a poison and tried to negate, which meant they had to drink a lot of wine to get any sort of buzz going.
‘Oh, and FYI, takes a lot to get drunk now,’ Marcy says as they grab bowls of porridge and sit down.
‘The infection literally burns it off or something,’ Tappy adds. ‘We drank so much, like soooo much.’
‘No hangover then?’ Blowers asks.
‘Nope!’ Charlie says with a beaming smile while avoiding looking at Cookey staring down at his bowl of food. ‘I feel amazing.’
‘Same,’ Marcy says.
‘You all look so cool,’ Nick says.
‘Yeah, awesome,’ Blowers says.
‘Would you like to shave your head and put some pink eye shadow on, Sergeant?’ Carmen asks.
‘Ha! I might.’
‘So cool,’ Mo says. ‘Really suits you, Paula.’
‘Aw, thank you, Mo! I was worried I was too old.’
‘Not at all!’ Reginald says with a big smile at them all, detecting that they’re straying into cult-like tribal behaviours, which is good because it strengthens the bond between them, and having unity is the most essential thing of all. ‘You all look wonderful! Not that such strong women need validation from any male members of our group.’
‘Reggie’s after snack favouritism,’ Nick says as the laughs roll out. The energy high. The mood so much better than when they crawled into the garden centre six days ago on their hands and knees.
Broken down and bloodied. All of them hurt and suffering. The blackest time since the outbreak began for them all as a collective group.
But time passes. Time rolls on, and difficult decisions were made to cut the rot out, with Booker being removed to allow the recovery to complete, with the infection ramping their healing and lifting them all back up.
Reginald knows now is the time to go back outside because the risk of becoming stir-crazy and turning on each other is at the highest. ‘Are we still on for visiting Tilda Tanners today? Our injuries have healed well,’ Reginald says, taking care to keep his tone casual, but the question of their future looms out of the air, and suddenly, there it is, the thing they’ve been avoiding for nearly a week, and all of them look towards Howie finishing off his porridge.
‘That was nice, Dave,’ Howie says. ‘Good effort making the porridge.’
‘Dave’s got a natural aptitude for cooking actually,’ Marcy says.
‘Well, it’s very systematic, isn’t it,’ Paula says. ‘I mean, you can have flair and be creative, but the actual process of cooking is step by step. Anyway. Elephant in the room, Howie.’
‘You’re turning into Joanie,’ Howie says with a gentle smile at his executive officer.
‘I think some of her soul came into mine,’ Paula says, ‘so stop faffing about. I can’t abide dithering.’
‘Awww,’ Tappy says, pulling a face at the memory of Joan.
‘Joanie,’ Bash says quietly, the pain showing in his eyes.
Howie inhales deeply. Buying a second to think because the answer just isn’t there. It’s not like the last six days have been spent solely focussed on what to do next. It hasn’t been like that. It’s been about drinking coffee and staring at the rain, and doing drill, and listening, and watching the lives of the people he loves play out within this suddenly captivating habitat. A place he’s come to like deeply. A place he could stay in for much longer.
Except that really isn’t an option.
‘I don’t want to go anywhere near people,’ he says with the words tumbling from his mouth without his mind consciously thinking of them. But what his mind does see is the little boy in his teddy bear pyjamas on day two and the little girl in the square on the eighteenth day, and the puppy. Fuck. The puppy. And that rage is still there. My god, it is still there, and if anything, it’s worse than it ever was. ‘But we need to finish what we started,’ he adds into the suddenly hard silence. ‘We get what we need. We’ll do the dinner party; then I’m going to London to find the Panacea and the people who started it.’
The silence holds. A few of them look to Paula and Henry to see their reactions. Others look to Reginald, who nods once slowly and chooses his words while knowing there is no easy way to say it. ‘We’re not there yet. We need to cull more before we release the Panacea. The other side will evolve, Howie. Even if we get the Panacea out today and give it to every person alive, they will still win.’
‘We’ve done enough, Reggie. It’s not our responsibility to do everything for everyone. You said it yourself. We have a gift. We’ll use it to get the Panacea; then Henry and whoever wants to can go off, but I will be finding the people that started it, and I will be killing every single one of them. If you all want to come with me, then great. But I will be seeking the path of least resistance, which means not picking fights with the infected.’
There it is. And at least the plan and the intent is now clear, and doing something will always be better than doing nothing.
‘I’d have to agree,’ Henry says after a moment. ‘We go for the Panacea.’
‘Understood,’ Reginald says, detecting the finality within Howie’s tone. ‘I have made my case, which you have countered, and I will abide your wishes and aid you to the very end, Howie.’
Howie takes his turn to nod as he looks over to the small, intense man and can’t help but smile at the way he’s dressed in walking gear. ‘We really need to get you back into a shirt and tie, Reg.’
‘At our earliest if you will!’ Reginald booms with a grin and a laugh. ‘And Reg? I thought we went past that a long time ago.’
‘Go on, say it,’ Blowers says with a laugh.
‘Say it, say it,’ Cookey chants.
‘I am not an east end gangster!’ Reginald says with full pompous glory, and the energy spikes back up. Flowing freely through them all.
‘Okay. We have a plan,’ Paula says. ‘We’ll go shopping and…’ she pauses with a smile as the others all say supply run. ‘And get what we need. And go and see Tilda, and say hi and what not, and see when’s best for this dinner party. Then we can get Mads to do the invites and get them down to the fort. What the…’ she cuts off from a ketchup sachet missile twatting her in the face. ‘What was that for?’ she asks as Marcy readies another one.
‘Don’t even think about taking over my dinner party.’
‘I was just… Okay, okay! All yours. But we need to do the invites though. Ow, that was my eye! Okay, fine. But make a list for things you need on the supply run… Right, that one was too hard!’
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