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crossovers Aug. 18th, 2022 05:52 pm)
anagrrl posting in crossovers Aug. 18th, 2022 05:52 pm)Hello! this is my first post to this community :)
Title: Village of the Y-arggghhh
Fandoms: Hot Fuzz/Anna and the Apocalypse
Rating: PG
Length: About 2900 words
Summary: Nicholas isn’t convinced that it’s zombies. But it’s absolutely zombies.
Notes: Hot Fuzz is like, my favourite movie ever (okay, well in the top 5, anyway). I also love Anna and the Apocalypse. And zombies. Thanks tovaliant for listening to me about Anna and the Apocalypse, which helped me write this fic.
Below the cut, or on AO3, here.
When they first get word of people attacking each other in the north, Danny looks up from his paperwork with an eager expression on his face and asks, “Have you ever fought off someone in a pub while they’re trying to eat you?”
“What?” Nicholas asks, absently, trying to understand the words on the bulletin. They are considerably less clear and precise than he’s come to expect. The sentence structure is concerning. Who do they have writing these things? Don’t they get edited before going out? Someone must have been in a rush to be this sloppy. “No."
Danny snatches the bulletin out of Nicholas’s hand, and says, “I know what you need,” and he ambles towards the station’s lounge, a little luxury they’d added when the place was rebuilt after the sea mine. It provided additional storage for Danny’s ample collection of popular media. And they use it for Officer Movie Night which had been Danny’s idea. "It’ll improve morale," he'd said, "and anyway, they’ve got a taste for action now. A good copper movie'll do 'em good."
He wasn't wrong, though maybe he'd started to regret it when the Andies declared they wanted to watch romantic comedies sometimes, PC Thatcher wanted to see some dancing, and PC Walker revealed his love of zombie movies.
"This wasn't exactly what I was thinking of," Danny had muttered one night when they all sat down to watch Ten Things I Hate About You. He cheered up considerably the following week when Dawn of the Dead came up on the roster. "Least there's guns in it. And a dog. I like the little dog."
Everybody had liked the little dog. Especially Saxon.
"A little dog gives real heart to a movie," Danny had said, after. "Makes you really care about the characters.
"Especially when they're about to get eaten," PC Thatcher had added.
"Especially."
Nicholas shakes the memory away and follows Danny to find out what it is he needs. It turns out it’s a crash-course on zombies lore, which Nicholas is loathe to take seriously, except that it wasn’t that long ago that a neighbourhood watch group had turned out to be full of murderous psychopaths. So he reminds himself to be a little more open minded.
Still, the sheer number of DVDs in Danny’s hands is disconcerting. “Do we have time for all of those?” He recognizes Dawn of the Dead, but not the others.
“Don’t worry,” Danny says, grinning in a way that could be called ‘reassuring’ but equally could be called ‘disturbing’. “I’ll fast forward the boring bits.”
*
A considerable number of hours – and a considerable amount of special-effects gore – later, Danny sits back against his chair with a satisfied sigh. “So, now you know what we can expect. And not just from the zombies.”
Nicholas still isn’t convinced that it’s zombies. But – “We can expect gore.”
Danny nods, grinning. “Absolutely.”
“Mayhem.”
Another nod. “Affirmatron.”
“Dwindling supplies.”
Danny salutes him, jauntily. “Indubitably, my friend.”
“Cannibals.”
“Well. Probably.” Danny looks slightly uncertain. “Possibly. Hopefully not. We’re not in America, after all.”
It seems like an unnecessary dig, but Nicholas ignores it and focusses on his list. “People making sensible decisions designed to save lives and get through a crisis safely and effectively.”
This earns him a frown. “Au contraire, mon frère. Were you watching at all?”
Nicholas smiles, despite himself. “People making terrible decisions.”
“That’s more like it.”
He sits for a moment, quiet. Then asks, “Have I missed anything?”
Danny looks at him again, maybe disappointed. He lists things off on his fingers, one at a time. “Guns. Fires. A plucky heroine not going down easily. Chaos. Desperate hijinks. Maybe a cute dog.” He pauses for a moment, “Oh, and crazy buggers. Trying to breach our barricades to steal our supplies and possibly kill us all or use us as some kind of doomsday cult sacrifice.”
Well. That is certainly quite a bit to think about. “Are we sure it’s zombies?”
Before Danny gets a chance to respond, PC Thatcher walks in, another bulletin in her hand. She drops it on Nicholas’s lap, and says, “It’s absolutely zombies.”
Nicholas takes a moment to read the new bulletin before handing it over to Danny. It’s even less coherent than the last one.
But it’s definitely zombies.
He needs a checklist.
*
If being a police officer is about being able to take fine, detailed, and useful notes, being in charge of an entire police station is about being able to make fine, detailed, and useful plans for all possible situations and contingencies.
"A checklist," he'd said to Danny once, "is possibly my greatest friend."
"You tell your peace lily that? Only, I think it might get jealous."
After reflecting on the considerable amount of gore and mayhem he’d watched, Nicholas is fairly confident he has a checklist for this situation that is both detailed and useful. "Right,” he announces to the team, “I have here a checklist suited to preparing Sandford to weather a potential zombie-like incursion."
"Ooooh, ain't you organized," DS Wainwright says, but for once there's nothing behind it. If anything, he sounds worried. Police emergency training manuals have an answer for that – keep them busy, so they don't have time to get overly anxious.
"Let's get started," he continues. “DS Wainwright, DC Cartwright – guns.” Fortunately, they’d recently stumbled upon another horde of weapons on a nearby farm, and they haven’t yet finished the requisite paperwork required for appropriate disposal. So the station is well-stocked. Still, “I want a full inventory of everything in the surrounding area. You know what I mean.”
“Got it.” DS Wainwright sounds satisfied. “Farmers’ guns.”
"Farmers," DC Cartwright says, thoughtfully. "It isn't just guns they have down in the barns."
"That's right," DS Wainwright adds. "They've got pickaxes. Pitchforks. And shovels."
"And their mums."
"Mums with pickaxes. Or shovels."
"Deadly," they say at the same time.
“Inventory it all,” Nicholas says. “PC Thatcher, we’ll have to move people into the village. Start setting up billeting and support infrastructure. Use whatever public and private spaces you need.”
She grins. “Got it, sir. Ooh, and you know I like a few private space visitors myself, if you know what I mean. Or public.”
He nods absently, already moving down to the next items on the list. “Sergeant Turner, start thinking about what we need to do to maintain access to fresh water and do an inventory of Somerfield. And medical supplies.” With Skinner long gone, Somerfield has done much better, is well stocked and orderly. A shining beacon of the community, really. And the new doctor in the village surgery isn’t a murderous psychopath, which Nicholas appreciates a little bit more each day.
“Danny,” Danny looks up from his doodling, which appears to be – yes, zombies following a pack of children, very on-point – “we’re going to need to brief the populace and start bringing them in for their own safety. Assembly location?”
And Danny grins at him and says, "I dunno. Pub?"
Makes sense. “Start making calls. I’ll be there in a hour.”
"Er," Sergeant Fisher starts, "what about me?"
"You and I," Nicholas says, pulling a pair of binoculars out of a drawer, "are going to check the perimeter of the village. Start thinking about fortifications. I could use your eye for detail, Sergeant."
Fisher pushes up his glasses and smiles. "Right you have it."
*
"What do you reckon?" Nicholas asks, after they've surveyed the perimeter, taken a look at the entrance and egress opportunities, and sat down for a cup of tea from Sergeant Fisher's flask. He knows what he thinks, but a good leader should let others have their say.
"Well," Sergeant Fisher says, drawing the word out. "I reckon the ground surrounding the village is too flat and there's too much in the way of trees, crumbling walls, and barns to really keep control over potential incursions. The farmsteads furthest out are too vulnerable, and won't have the manpower to keep zombies away. They could be a problem evacuating, though, what with wanting to stay to protect their livestock."
True.
He takes a sip of his tea. "If we're going to have any sort of chance, it's probably best in the village centre and green. Don't waste time blocking off the perimeter roads, because the zombies won't be driving, and if there are any refugees, we'll just slow them down. Focus on a central fortification and supplies."
"Excellent," Nicholas says, "get started. Use some of the local teenagers as runners to help. They have time on their hands, they could be doing something useful.”
“Will do. I’ll keep those little buggers busy.”
As he’s walking away, he hears Sergeant Fisher already talking with the stragglers that had been drawn to their discussion. “Now, my idea of a perfect barricade is –”
*
He heads to the pub. But he stops by the shop on the way, because Danny says a supply of ice cream and candy will help keep the populace calm. He also brings a DVD, because Danny thinks maybe it’ll help people get settled.
As Nicholas walks into the pub, Danny puts his lager down with a thud and announces, “We’re commandeering this space!” Former Sergeant Bob Walker, now village pub landlord, just stares. “Zombies, Bob! We need to brief the populace!”
“Gmrfrgrodldot,” Bob replies, loud enough that Saxon – more than a little deaf these days – actually looks up. He pulls a rifle from under the bar, adding, “Erforgtbutlenmfguns.”
“Exactly,” says Danny. “I’m surprised it hasn’t happened sooner to. And don’t worry, the Andies are on the guns.”
“Hmmphfhalfwits thrimmngfllfl.”
“Ah, come on, Bob. They’re not both halfwits. They have half a wit between them, am I right?” Danny leans against the bar, nods at Nicholas and asks, “What’re you having?”
Nicholas consults his checklist. “I think now is the time for...a cranberry juice.”
“Right. We can get pissed when we’re dead.” And they get to briefing Bob, in advance of the villagers arriving.
*
Things move quickly from there. The early days of a zombie apocalypse are surprisingly busy. His initial checklist proves to be both more and less useful than Nicholas had hoped. He’s forced to update it, which makes for a disorganized notebook. Still, some things can’t be helped, he supposes.
In less than a day and half most of the outlying populace has been pulled into the village centre. Nicholas is pleasantly surprised, and proud of his team.
"I’m pleasantly surprised," he says to the Andies. "This has come together remarkably well."
"Ah, it weren't nothing," DS Wainwright says, smugly. "Andy here just stood there and yelled at them until they packed up."
"You gotta know how to talk to farmers is all," DC Cartwright adds.
"Your dad's a farmer, Andy," Danny says.
"Exactly.
"Right," Nicholas says, slowly. "That's...wonderful."
"Ain't it though. And they brought along their pickaxes, pitchforks, and guns."
"And shovels."
"Precisely. Them too." DS Wainwright nods. "Didn't just do our job, we did Fanny Butterbum over here’s too."
Predictably, Danny yells, "Hey! That isn’t fair."
"No," the Andies say in unison, "it isn’t."
"Well," Nicholas interrupts, "what matters is we have a decent stockpile of weapons and a safe populace. I think we need to add a security perimeter. Spotters, on the rooftops, taking shifts. Danny, can you arrange that?"
Danny grins, holding out a piece of rumpled notebook paper. "Already done. Six-hour rotation, people on for 6, off for 12. I got volunteers and all."
For the second time, Nicholas feels proud. "Impressive."
"See," Danny says, glaring at the Andies, "I weren't just standing around sitting on it all day. I was using my notebook."
*
Shops and offices have been cleared out to make way for camp beds, school rooms, and meeting rooms. The National Trust shopfront becomes the temporary police station (if asked, Nicholas would have thought it would end up in the pub, but he recognizes the morale boost of having a functional gathering place), and it's even organized.
Sergeant Fisher’s barricades are impressively thorough and they hold up better than Nicholas had hoped. There’s even a walkway along the top of the gate and at other strategic locations.
“I don’t know why you’re surprised,” Danny says one of their nightly patrols. “Trying to get an idea into that head of his is like running into a brick wall.”
Danny’s comments don’t entirely make sense, but Nicholas is leaning over the barricade to stab a stray zombie through the head with one of their remarkably efficient improvised pikes, and he’s really quite tired because it’s been a rather busy week, so he just nods.
“Oh, and Nicholas? Happy Christmas. I got you something.”
Nicholas straightens up and looks over. Danny’s holding a decapitated zombie head, grinning like a maniac. He’s stuck a red sparkly bow on the side.
It’s no peace lily, but he’ll take it.
*
They settle in for the long haul, because even though everything moved quickly at first, it’s clear that this will be a long haul. A marathon. Nicholas refines their strategies, keeps track of supplies, and works out a reasonable patrol roster.
He finds he prefers placing the Andies at the barricade gates because they're crazy buggers themselves and won’t be fooled by people who might want to kill them and steal their supplies. But they don't get many people, cannibal, crazy, or otherwise. In fact, there have been almost no living people flowing to or past Sandford.
"It's a good thing," Danny says, and Nicholas sees his point because they have fresh water and a good supply of food, but only so much space for refugees.
"It's probably a bad thing," PC Thatcher says, her face uncharacteristically solemn, and Nicholas thinks that yes, it probably is.
Really, the only newcomer is Dave. Dave, who drove up in a modified Mini that looked like something out of a Mad Max movie for kids. Small. Spikey. Cute. Deadly.
“Crazy bugger,” DC Cartwright had muttered as James got out of the car. “Just look at him. Who drives around in one of them at a time like this?”
They don’t know his backstory, and they don’t ask, but Dave had turned out to be surprisingly reasonable, relatively friendly, and quite low-key, despite his spiked leather jacket and studded headband, questionable face paint and suspiciously bloody cricket batt.
And he makes a great Spaghetti Bolognese.
So Nicholas was expecting cannibals and crazy buggers and zombie hordes at the gates, but instead they got Dave, a relatively small number of actual zombies, and now these kids. Well, teenagers. They look like they know how to do something useful.
"State your business," DS Wainwright yells down from the barricade walkway, looking more and more like a crazy bugger every day. The Andies have taken to wearing bandana headbands, and although that isn’t strictly regulation uniform, Nicholas had decided to just let it go.
The kids look up them, incredulous, messy. Nicholas listens, just out of sight.
"Oh, I don't know," yells the one with blonde at the ends of her hair. Her natural colour is growing out. Or maybe this was a style popular with the post-apocalyptic youth these days. Nicholas knows he’s out of touch with such things. She’s scowling up at them, "Taking a leisurely Sunday drive in the countryside? What does it look like?"
It looks like they’re hungry, tired, and yet oddly chipper. They’re all holding some kind of blunt-force weapon in their hands. Their vehicle is covered in dried blood and pieces of viscera. If this were a movie, Nicholas would give it points for verisimilitude. Although, incongruously, the vehicle appears to be full of Christmas presents, even though it’s almost May.
"Looks like someone has too much lip, is what it looks like!" DC Cartwright yells back. "We don't take kindly to lip around here, young lady!" There are a few supporting jeers in the background, but they don’t last long. Everyone is interested in newcomers.
“You want in here,” DS Wainwright adds, “you better tell us what you bring to the table!”
The kids look at each other, some kind of silent communication happening between them. Nicholas respects that. They’ve clearly been through the wars, as his grandmother would have said. Finally, they seem to come to a decision, and the boy says,
"When it comes to killing zombies, we’re the top of our class?" He says it with a lilt, almost sounds like the beginning of a song. And that is just unusual.
“More like the last of our class,” the blonde-tipped girl mutters.
But perhaps they are at the top of their class. After all, they’re the first living humans they’ve seen since Dave, and Nicholas has always been at the head of his class. He knows how to recognize fellow Achievers. So he steps forward, and says, “Welcome. You’ve reached the Sandford Village Barricade.”
The long-haired girl rolls her eyes. “Yeah, we noticed,” and gestures at the banner at the top of the barricade. It’s nicely decorated with a motif of pitchforks, flowers, and decapitated zombies. The attention to detail is excellent. They have the Women’s Institute to thank for it, and it’s true that the quality of a banner can say a lot about a community.
“Aren’t you a real Village of the Year,” she adds.
Well, of course they are. Nicholas gestures DC Cartwright to open the gates. They have food, water, medical supplies, weapons, and a solid perimeter. They’ve got space for refugees, tonight’s dinner is Spaghetti Bolognese (thank you, Dave), and there’s even some bread going. They’ve got a generator that has allowed Officer Movie Night to become Village Movie Night, a respectable livestock herd on the village green, and a surprisingly high level of morale.
As far as Nicholas is concerned, they have the Village of the Year title wrapped up.
End.
Title: Village of the Y-arggghhh
Fandoms: Hot Fuzz/Anna and the Apocalypse
Rating: PG
Length: About 2900 words
Summary: Nicholas isn’t convinced that it’s zombies. But it’s absolutely zombies.
Notes: Hot Fuzz is like, my favourite movie ever (okay, well in the top 5, anyway). I also love Anna and the Apocalypse. And zombies. Thanks to
valiant for listening to me about Anna and the Apocalypse, which helped me write this fic.Below the cut, or on AO3, here.
When they first get word of people attacking each other in the north, Danny looks up from his paperwork with an eager expression on his face and asks, “Have you ever fought off someone in a pub while they’re trying to eat you?”
“What?” Nicholas asks, absently, trying to understand the words on the bulletin. They are considerably less clear and precise than he’s come to expect. The sentence structure is concerning. Who do they have writing these things? Don’t they get edited before going out? Someone must have been in a rush to be this sloppy. “No."
Danny snatches the bulletin out of Nicholas’s hand, and says, “I know what you need,” and he ambles towards the station’s lounge, a little luxury they’d added when the place was rebuilt after the sea mine. It provided additional storage for Danny’s ample collection of popular media. And they use it for Officer Movie Night which had been Danny’s idea. "It’ll improve morale," he'd said, "and anyway, they’ve got a taste for action now. A good copper movie'll do 'em good."
He wasn't wrong, though maybe he'd started to regret it when the Andies declared they wanted to watch romantic comedies sometimes, PC Thatcher wanted to see some dancing, and PC Walker revealed his love of zombie movies.
"This wasn't exactly what I was thinking of," Danny had muttered one night when they all sat down to watch Ten Things I Hate About You. He cheered up considerably the following week when Dawn of the Dead came up on the roster. "Least there's guns in it. And a dog. I like the little dog."
Everybody had liked the little dog. Especially Saxon.
"A little dog gives real heart to a movie," Danny had said, after. "Makes you really care about the characters.
"Especially when they're about to get eaten," PC Thatcher had added.
"Especially."
Nicholas shakes the memory away and follows Danny to find out what it is he needs. It turns out it’s a crash-course on zombies lore, which Nicholas is loathe to take seriously, except that it wasn’t that long ago that a neighbourhood watch group had turned out to be full of murderous psychopaths. So he reminds himself to be a little more open minded.
Still, the sheer number of DVDs in Danny’s hands is disconcerting. “Do we have time for all of those?” He recognizes Dawn of the Dead, but not the others.
“Don’t worry,” Danny says, grinning in a way that could be called ‘reassuring’ but equally could be called ‘disturbing’. “I’ll fast forward the boring bits.”
*
A considerable number of hours – and a considerable amount of special-effects gore – later, Danny sits back against his chair with a satisfied sigh. “So, now you know what we can expect. And not just from the zombies.”
Nicholas still isn’t convinced that it’s zombies. But – “We can expect gore.”
Danny nods, grinning. “Absolutely.”
“Mayhem.”
Another nod. “Affirmatron.”
“Dwindling supplies.”
Danny salutes him, jauntily. “Indubitably, my friend.”
“Cannibals.”
“Well. Probably.” Danny looks slightly uncertain. “Possibly. Hopefully not. We’re not in America, after all.”
It seems like an unnecessary dig, but Nicholas ignores it and focusses on his list. “People making sensible decisions designed to save lives and get through a crisis safely and effectively.”
This earns him a frown. “Au contraire, mon frère. Were you watching at all?”
Nicholas smiles, despite himself. “People making terrible decisions.”
“That’s more like it.”
He sits for a moment, quiet. Then asks, “Have I missed anything?”
Danny looks at him again, maybe disappointed. He lists things off on his fingers, one at a time. “Guns. Fires. A plucky heroine not going down easily. Chaos. Desperate hijinks. Maybe a cute dog.” He pauses for a moment, “Oh, and crazy buggers. Trying to breach our barricades to steal our supplies and possibly kill us all or use us as some kind of doomsday cult sacrifice.”
Well. That is certainly quite a bit to think about. “Are we sure it’s zombies?”
Before Danny gets a chance to respond, PC Thatcher walks in, another bulletin in her hand. She drops it on Nicholas’s lap, and says, “It’s absolutely zombies.”
Nicholas takes a moment to read the new bulletin before handing it over to Danny. It’s even less coherent than the last one.
But it’s definitely zombies.
He needs a checklist.
*
If being a police officer is about being able to take fine, detailed, and useful notes, being in charge of an entire police station is about being able to make fine, detailed, and useful plans for all possible situations and contingencies.
"A checklist," he'd said to Danny once, "is possibly my greatest friend."
"You tell your peace lily that? Only, I think it might get jealous."
After reflecting on the considerable amount of gore and mayhem he’d watched, Nicholas is fairly confident he has a checklist for this situation that is both detailed and useful. "Right,” he announces to the team, “I have here a checklist suited to preparing Sandford to weather a potential zombie-like incursion."
"Ooooh, ain't you organized," DS Wainwright says, but for once there's nothing behind it. If anything, he sounds worried. Police emergency training manuals have an answer for that – keep them busy, so they don't have time to get overly anxious.
"Let's get started," he continues. “DS Wainwright, DC Cartwright – guns.” Fortunately, they’d recently stumbled upon another horde of weapons on a nearby farm, and they haven’t yet finished the requisite paperwork required for appropriate disposal. So the station is well-stocked. Still, “I want a full inventory of everything in the surrounding area. You know what I mean.”
“Got it.” DS Wainwright sounds satisfied. “Farmers’ guns.”
"Farmers," DC Cartwright says, thoughtfully. "It isn't just guns they have down in the barns."
"That's right," DS Wainwright adds. "They've got pickaxes. Pitchforks. And shovels."
"And their mums."
"Mums with pickaxes. Or shovels."
"Deadly," they say at the same time.
“Inventory it all,” Nicholas says. “PC Thatcher, we’ll have to move people into the village. Start setting up billeting and support infrastructure. Use whatever public and private spaces you need.”
She grins. “Got it, sir. Ooh, and you know I like a few private space visitors myself, if you know what I mean. Or public.”
He nods absently, already moving down to the next items on the list. “Sergeant Turner, start thinking about what we need to do to maintain access to fresh water and do an inventory of Somerfield. And medical supplies.” With Skinner long gone, Somerfield has done much better, is well stocked and orderly. A shining beacon of the community, really. And the new doctor in the village surgery isn’t a murderous psychopath, which Nicholas appreciates a little bit more each day.
“Danny,” Danny looks up from his doodling, which appears to be – yes, zombies following a pack of children, very on-point – “we’re going to need to brief the populace and start bringing them in for their own safety. Assembly location?”
And Danny grins at him and says, "I dunno. Pub?"
Makes sense. “Start making calls. I’ll be there in a hour.”
"Er," Sergeant Fisher starts, "what about me?"
"You and I," Nicholas says, pulling a pair of binoculars out of a drawer, "are going to check the perimeter of the village. Start thinking about fortifications. I could use your eye for detail, Sergeant."
Fisher pushes up his glasses and smiles. "Right you have it."
*
"What do you reckon?" Nicholas asks, after they've surveyed the perimeter, taken a look at the entrance and egress opportunities, and sat down for a cup of tea from Sergeant Fisher's flask. He knows what he thinks, but a good leader should let others have their say.
"Well," Sergeant Fisher says, drawing the word out. "I reckon the ground surrounding the village is too flat and there's too much in the way of trees, crumbling walls, and barns to really keep control over potential incursions. The farmsteads furthest out are too vulnerable, and won't have the manpower to keep zombies away. They could be a problem evacuating, though, what with wanting to stay to protect their livestock."
True.
He takes a sip of his tea. "If we're going to have any sort of chance, it's probably best in the village centre and green. Don't waste time blocking off the perimeter roads, because the zombies won't be driving, and if there are any refugees, we'll just slow them down. Focus on a central fortification and supplies."
"Excellent," Nicholas says, "get started. Use some of the local teenagers as runners to help. They have time on their hands, they could be doing something useful.”
“Will do. I’ll keep those little buggers busy.”
As he’s walking away, he hears Sergeant Fisher already talking with the stragglers that had been drawn to their discussion. “Now, my idea of a perfect barricade is –”
*
He heads to the pub. But he stops by the shop on the way, because Danny says a supply of ice cream and candy will help keep the populace calm. He also brings a DVD, because Danny thinks maybe it’ll help people get settled.
As Nicholas walks into the pub, Danny puts his lager down with a thud and announces, “We’re commandeering this space!” Former Sergeant Bob Walker, now village pub landlord, just stares. “Zombies, Bob! We need to brief the populace!”
“Gmrfrgrodldot,” Bob replies, loud enough that Saxon – more than a little deaf these days – actually looks up. He pulls a rifle from under the bar, adding, “Erforgtbutlenmfguns.”
“Exactly,” says Danny. “I’m surprised it hasn’t happened sooner to. And don’t worry, the Andies are on the guns.”
“Hmmphfhalfwits thrimmngfllfl.”
“Ah, come on, Bob. They’re not both halfwits. They have half a wit between them, am I right?” Danny leans against the bar, nods at Nicholas and asks, “What’re you having?”
Nicholas consults his checklist. “I think now is the time for...a cranberry juice.”
“Right. We can get pissed when we’re dead.” And they get to briefing Bob, in advance of the villagers arriving.
*
Things move quickly from there. The early days of a zombie apocalypse are surprisingly busy. His initial checklist proves to be both more and less useful than Nicholas had hoped. He’s forced to update it, which makes for a disorganized notebook. Still, some things can’t be helped, he supposes.
In less than a day and half most of the outlying populace has been pulled into the village centre. Nicholas is pleasantly surprised, and proud of his team.
"I’m pleasantly surprised," he says to the Andies. "This has come together remarkably well."
"Ah, it weren't nothing," DS Wainwright says, smugly. "Andy here just stood there and yelled at them until they packed up."
"You gotta know how to talk to farmers is all," DC Cartwright adds.
"Your dad's a farmer, Andy," Danny says.
"Exactly.
"Right," Nicholas says, slowly. "That's...wonderful."
"Ain't it though. And they brought along their pickaxes, pitchforks, and guns."
"And shovels."
"Precisely. Them too." DS Wainwright nods. "Didn't just do our job, we did Fanny Butterbum over here’s too."
Predictably, Danny yells, "Hey! That isn’t fair."
"No," the Andies say in unison, "it isn’t."
"Well," Nicholas interrupts, "what matters is we have a decent stockpile of weapons and a safe populace. I think we need to add a security perimeter. Spotters, on the rooftops, taking shifts. Danny, can you arrange that?"
Danny grins, holding out a piece of rumpled notebook paper. "Already done. Six-hour rotation, people on for 6, off for 12. I got volunteers and all."
For the second time, Nicholas feels proud. "Impressive."
"See," Danny says, glaring at the Andies, "I weren't just standing around sitting on it all day. I was using my notebook."
*
Shops and offices have been cleared out to make way for camp beds, school rooms, and meeting rooms. The National Trust shopfront becomes the temporary police station (if asked, Nicholas would have thought it would end up in the pub, but he recognizes the morale boost of having a functional gathering place), and it's even organized.
Sergeant Fisher’s barricades are impressively thorough and they hold up better than Nicholas had hoped. There’s even a walkway along the top of the gate and at other strategic locations.
“I don’t know why you’re surprised,” Danny says one of their nightly patrols. “Trying to get an idea into that head of his is like running into a brick wall.”
Danny’s comments don’t entirely make sense, but Nicholas is leaning over the barricade to stab a stray zombie through the head with one of their remarkably efficient improvised pikes, and he’s really quite tired because it’s been a rather busy week, so he just nods.
“Oh, and Nicholas? Happy Christmas. I got you something.”
Nicholas straightens up and looks over. Danny’s holding a decapitated zombie head, grinning like a maniac. He’s stuck a red sparkly bow on the side.
It’s no peace lily, but he’ll take it.
*
They settle in for the long haul, because even though everything moved quickly at first, it’s clear that this will be a long haul. A marathon. Nicholas refines their strategies, keeps track of supplies, and works out a reasonable patrol roster.
He finds he prefers placing the Andies at the barricade gates because they're crazy buggers themselves and won’t be fooled by people who might want to kill them and steal their supplies. But they don't get many people, cannibal, crazy, or otherwise. In fact, there have been almost no living people flowing to or past Sandford.
"It's a good thing," Danny says, and Nicholas sees his point because they have fresh water and a good supply of food, but only so much space for refugees.
"It's probably a bad thing," PC Thatcher says, her face uncharacteristically solemn, and Nicholas thinks that yes, it probably is.
Really, the only newcomer is Dave. Dave, who drove up in a modified Mini that looked like something out of a Mad Max movie for kids. Small. Spikey. Cute. Deadly.
“Crazy bugger,” DC Cartwright had muttered as James got out of the car. “Just look at him. Who drives around in one of them at a time like this?”
They don’t know his backstory, and they don’t ask, but Dave had turned out to be surprisingly reasonable, relatively friendly, and quite low-key, despite his spiked leather jacket and studded headband, questionable face paint and suspiciously bloody cricket batt.
And he makes a great Spaghetti Bolognese.
So Nicholas was expecting cannibals and crazy buggers and zombie hordes at the gates, but instead they got Dave, a relatively small number of actual zombies, and now these kids. Well, teenagers. They look like they know how to do something useful.
"State your business," DS Wainwright yells down from the barricade walkway, looking more and more like a crazy bugger every day. The Andies have taken to wearing bandana headbands, and although that isn’t strictly regulation uniform, Nicholas had decided to just let it go.
The kids look up them, incredulous, messy. Nicholas listens, just out of sight.
"Oh, I don't know," yells the one with blonde at the ends of her hair. Her natural colour is growing out. Or maybe this was a style popular with the post-apocalyptic youth these days. Nicholas knows he’s out of touch with such things. She’s scowling up at them, "Taking a leisurely Sunday drive in the countryside? What does it look like?"
It looks like they’re hungry, tired, and yet oddly chipper. They’re all holding some kind of blunt-force weapon in their hands. Their vehicle is covered in dried blood and pieces of viscera. If this were a movie, Nicholas would give it points for verisimilitude. Although, incongruously, the vehicle appears to be full of Christmas presents, even though it’s almost May.
"Looks like someone has too much lip, is what it looks like!" DC Cartwright yells back. "We don't take kindly to lip around here, young lady!" There are a few supporting jeers in the background, but they don’t last long. Everyone is interested in newcomers.
“You want in here,” DS Wainwright adds, “you better tell us what you bring to the table!”
The kids look at each other, some kind of silent communication happening between them. Nicholas respects that. They’ve clearly been through the wars, as his grandmother would have said. Finally, they seem to come to a decision, and the boy says,
"When it comes to killing zombies, we’re the top of our class?" He says it with a lilt, almost sounds like the beginning of a song. And that is just unusual.
“More like the last of our class,” the blonde-tipped girl mutters.
But perhaps they are at the top of their class. After all, they’re the first living humans they’ve seen since Dave, and Nicholas has always been at the head of his class. He knows how to recognize fellow Achievers. So he steps forward, and says, “Welcome. You’ve reached the Sandford Village Barricade.”
The long-haired girl rolls her eyes. “Yeah, we noticed,” and gestures at the banner at the top of the barricade. It’s nicely decorated with a motif of pitchforks, flowers, and decapitated zombies. The attention to detail is excellent. They have the Women’s Institute to thank for it, and it’s true that the quality of a banner can say a lot about a community.
“Aren’t you a real Village of the Year,” she adds.
Well, of course they are. Nicholas gestures DC Cartwright to open the gates. They have food, water, medical supplies, weapons, and a solid perimeter. They’ve got space for refugees, tonight’s dinner is Spaghetti Bolognese (thank you, Dave), and there’s even some bread going. They’ve got a generator that has allowed Officer Movie Night to become Village Movie Night, a respectable livestock herd on the village green, and a surprisingly high level of morale.
As far as Nicholas is concerned, they have the Village of the Year title wrapped up.
End.
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Anna and the Apocalypse is a secondary school musical zombie apocalypse movie set in Scotland. It's both ridiculous and delightful!