Homecoming part 2 - an ATZ English adventure

Tires screeched, losing traction and fighting to grip the road, as Andy "Gobbo" Wosa stomped on the brakes of the speeding ambulance.  The emergency vehicle slewed to a halt mere feet from the policeman who had flagged him down, behind the copper an overturned car lay across the junction at the end of his road barring the way.  More astonishing and certainly more worrying was the bloody big crater that had previously been Gladys Nightingale's kitchen.  Andy reeled in the seat of the ambulance as he looked into the debris strewn garden and the gaping hole in the wall of the end terrace house so close to his family home.  Leaping from the cab, he strode toward the beleaguered police officer, intent on gaining access to his property.

the starting positions

"Hold it sir, you can't come through here – there’s been a gas explosion, the whole area is unsafe" the officer, haggard and exhausted by the sheer volume of calls he'd been to in the previous 24 hours, couldn't hide the annoyance in his voice as the EMT looked to push passed him.

"But my family, they're just up there, I need to get to them!" Gobbo shouted, his usual jovial charm supressed by his anxiety at being so near his wife and kids.

"Don't take that tone with me mate" the copper snarled, "you just stay back or you'll be arrested".

Andy was startled, normally the relationship between the services was banter level at worst, this hostility was unusual enough to set him back on his heels.  Looking desperately up at the house trying to spot his family, he was torn between just pushing passed the harassed copper or just driving the ambulance back and finding another way in.  A blur of movement in his peripheral vision spun him back around as a fast-moving form crashed into a copper standing by the hole in the ground that was once Mrs Nightingale's prized pansies. 

the first "zombie" attacks

With an almost animalistic growl, the zombie (yes Gobbo decided, it was definitely safe to call these things zombies now) dressed in a blue overall and looking suspiciously like the young plumber who lived three doors up from him, barrelled into the big police officer intent on dragging him to the ground.  Teeth snapped as the creature tried to latch onto the copper's throat and bite a chunk out of him.  Gobbo watched on in horror as the big man struggled with the foul infected human for a few precious seconds, his colleagues seemingly paralysed at the speed of the attack. With a herculean effort, the copper managed to throw his large arm around the neck of the zombie and heave with all his strength. A terrific crack sounded across the road as he flexed his steroid built muscle snapping the infected's c-spine and dropping it to the floor. 

"Oi Sarge, this is one of those infected folks innit?" The muscular, young police officer called across to the clearly more experienced man over by the squad car. "Wot did they call it sarge? 'diseased subjects' or some such shit. D-subs is wot Nobsy called 'em".  With a gusty sigh, the sarge started to move over to his over-pumped subordinate intent on examining this 'd-sub' for himself when he spotted several others moving toward his patrol.

the coppers look shocked at the attack

Andy, having spotted the shuffling zombies, had already started running. "Fuck this noise" he whispered to himself as he put his head down and sprinted toward home, slipping passed the copper in his path and moving closer to the 'roid-head policeman and his dead 'd-sub'.  The sergeant intent on the “d-subs” let him through and barked orders at his officers forming them into a line anchored by the overturned car as a barricade, apprehension stamped across their faces as the atmosphere became charged with tension.

Behind the police line, Andy trotted up the street fear overcoming his natural reluctance to jog anywhere but his poor fitness overriding his ability to sprint for more than a few seconds.  Ahead, he could see his familiar front door, as usual Lisa had put the rubbish out last night for collection this morning and it had, rather surprisingly given the savagery of the storm and the gas explosion not been blown all over the place.  Intent on finding his family, Andy failed to spot the figure that detached itself from the shadows of a doorway further up the road until it was too late.

“Gobbo, you arrogant prick.” A rough voice jolted Andy back into the precarious position his inattention had placed him, with an inner cringe at his lapse in awareness.  Looking up the street he identified the source of that cigarette and cheap booze soaked voice, supressing a groan at the sight of Rob ‘Nudger’ Taylor.  In his 40’s, unshaven and unkempt he was the de facto leader of the low-level street thugs that lived next door, terrorising the elderly population and preying on the struggling families of the social housing estate nearby. He despised Andy, presumably because of the connection to authority but mostly because Andy didn’t cower in fear when he or his thugs sauntered by.  “Lack of respect” Taylor always muttered under his breath at the sight of the EMT.  He had conducted an unsuccessful campaign of intimidation against Andy and his family - keying his car, lounging outside on the manky old sofa that he’d dragged outside with his cronies drinking and swearing, even egging his windows like some kind of high school prankster. All of which was dealt with by Andy in his typical low-key style, either ignored or treated with the contempt those actions deserved.  This time though Taylor thought to himself, he wouldn’t be ignored, this time he was gonna show that bastard Gobbo that he was a man to be respected, this time he’d brought his eldest son Jason’s crossbow.

Gobbo wins the insight test and "ducks back"

Andy, seeing the nasty looking weapon aimed directly at him dived to his left, over the remainder of Mrs Nightingale’s outer wall and into her ruined front room.  Surprised by this sudden athleticism from the portly medic, Taylor loosed a bolt at the space Gobbo had just occupied, the heavy metal missile clattering off the bricks of the blasted wall and landing at the feet of the police sergeant.  With a snarl at missing his hated foe, Taylor feverishly began to reload the weapon blissfully unaware of the horrified, then angry look on the police officer’s face.

Sargent Elliot “ET” Thomas, picked up the deadly bolt and stuffed it his belt behind his ASP which he drew instead, shaking the heavy baton out to its full extent. Looking at his assembled patrol, he pointed at PC Sam Brown. “With me Sam, careful he’s armed”.  The younger officer, nodded his assent and drew his own baton and followed his superior officer up the narrow street toward the old scrote, who had finally clocked the coppers.

the first PEF comes into contact

Taylor, cursed as he tried to remember how the ‘bows string was drawn taut.  The Old Bill were closing in on his position with their batons drawn and he knew he was about to get a proper kickin’.  Pursing his lips, he issued a piercing whistle, alerting his mates to the incoming danger.  Taylor smiled as his three drinking buddies poured out of his front door and confronted the two police officers. 

and is revealed as three of Nudger's thugs!

ET stopped in surprise as the thugs exited the dilapidated tenement in front of him, holding up his arm to stop PC Brown.  “Alright you lot, back it up or you’ll all find yourselves nicked!”, he barked at the scrotes, trying to project authority in his voice and worried that he and Brown were outnumbered until the other two officers could back them up.  The thugs looked jittery as if they were strung out on something other than the alcohol they reeked of, it was therefore no surprise to the sarge when, with a snarl they launched themselves at the police officers.  The closest, a 30 something male armed with a crowbar swung at the sarge, catching him by surprise and striking him painfully in the gut dropping him to the floor.  Winded, the older man clutched his stomach which, while it was protected by his body armour still hurt horrendously.  On his knees, he watched as a young but haggard looking female swept passed him and slashed at PC Brown with a huge kitchen knife, the sharp blade opening the officer from elbow to wrist before she kicked him, bowling him over onto the floor.  ET’s eyes filled with tears as his protégé fell with blood pouring from the torn vasculature of his arm. Those eyes hardened as a scrawny scrag-head wildly charged toward him waving an iron bar. On his hands and knees, ET drew the vicious looking xbow bolt from his belt holding it like a dagger before thrusting the deadly missile into the junkie’s leg with enough force to lodge in his femur.  With a spray of arterial blood, the young man turned away from the sarge, crashing to the floor to lie in an expanding crimson pool. 

insight tests see the sarge go toe to toe with a gang member with PC Brown not getting a single success

despite being knocked down straight away the sarge does well unlike PC Brown

WPC Kate Dodson looked at the advancing ‘d-subs’ and then back at the now deadly fight raging between the sarge and the gang of toughs.  Grabbing the last member of the patrol – PC Lewis Attwell, the steroid ripped copper who had smashed the first d-sub into the ground, she ran up the street to back up her colleagues.  Drawing her ASP as she ran, she chose the female scrag-head looming over Sam as her target.  With surprising agility for a junkie, the piece of street trash dodged the descending baton and using Kate’s momentum she drove the point of the kitchen knife she was holding deep into the police officers neck, almost severing her head with the savagery of the blow. Atwell, enraged by the loss of his colleague and someone he had thoroughly respected (even fancied a little) tried to batter the vile skank with his enormous fists, but his wild blows failed to connect with any force.

PC Dodson gets slaughtered

Andy picked himself up off the dusty floor of Gladys’s front room and winced as a jolt of pain ran up his right leg from his ankle, obviously twisted in his wild dive to avoid being shot.  Turning to watch the battle raging outside of Nudger’s shithole of a house, he debated whether to go to the officer’s aid particularly the young copper bleeding from a vicious cut to his arm.  With horror, he witnessed the savage assault on the female officer, crying out in anguish knowing that she would not survive such a grievous insult.  As he began hobbling toward the fight, a low ‘whump’ up the street tore his attention away from the brawl and focused his gaze on the house the other side of his family home.  Bright flames contrasted with the dark, black smoke as it poured from the top windows of Mr and Mrs Wilson’s tidy end terrace as the well-kept building ignited from some unseen source. Aghast, Andy realised his own family were in grave danger from the fire that was unlikely to be attended by Kent Fire and Rescue Service, the fire would draw more of the ‘d-subs toward it increasing the danger even more.  With a sigh of grief, he turned away from the coppers who were fighting desperately to survive and staggered around the back of the Nightingale property in an effort to avoid the battle in his street.

The Wilson property bursts into flames!

PC Atwell embroiled in his fight with the female junkie, felt a hand reach out and grab his shoulder.  Instinctively he folded his huge mitt over the wrist of a nightie-clad female d-sub and flipped her across his massive back so that she landed on the floor with the heavy thud that could only be her skull smashing on the pavement.  As impressive as the move was, it cost him precious time and the skank rammed her blade into his stomach with as much force as she could muster, folding the big man over the weapon as he dropped to the ground, tearing it from her grasp.  Rolling on the floor from the unexpected power of the blow, Lewis realised he had been lucky as his stab-proof vest lived up to its name.

the brawl continues and zombies are being drawn by the fire...

PC Atwell is attacked by a d-sub

Sargent Thomas still on the floor, lashed out with his ASP at his remaining opponent.  The heavy baton struck the man at the knee, pulverising the joint and dropped him screaming to the floor.  Jumping to his feet (and wincing at the pain in his hip as he did it) he ran at the skanky female who had floored Atwell.  A wild swing with his baton missed her by miles and caused him to drop to the floor again, however it did distract her from attacking Atwell as he recovered on the floor.

The sarge fights better from the floor clearly

Nudger watched the unfolding fight, his still unloaded xbow forgotten in his hands as he took in the implications of the fight that was unfolding in front of him.  Blood had been spilled, some of it from the coppers who were going to be gunning for him from here on out.  Torn between doing a runner or laying into the brawl and giving his mates some help, he stood doing neither - a spectator in a drama of his own making.  A noise at the back of the Wilson’s house pulled his attention away from the fight in time to see some infected people crashing through the back door of their burning house, catching light as they walked obliviously through the flames.  More zombies appeared at the bottom of the road from behind the overturned car and headed toward the humans scrapping in the middle of the street.  He knew he had to do something or be overwhelmed by the slow moving but dangerous zombies, driven by his survival instincts he figured he’d be better off with some flunkies around him to protect him from the dangers of this “new world”.  He needed to finish off the remaining coppers and quickly, with this in mind he ran toward the fallen sergeant.  

the infected are closing in

Nudger decides to make his move

next instalment coming soon

hope you enjoy

dGG