by Nathan Allen
He heard the clop-clop-clop of Keenan’s cowboy boots growing louder and louder, then the sudden roar of gunfire as he snuffed out one of the few remaining zombies with his Glock pistol.
He had to think fast. Should he come out waving a white flag? He wasn’t sure that was such a good idea. He was covered head-to-toe in zombie blood and innards, and although he hadn’t been bitten – at least, he didn’t think he had – they could easily mistake him for one of the undead. These guys seemed to have a shoot-first-ask-questions-later policy. Even if he was able to convince them both that he was in perfect health, it was unlikely that they’d inspect him for skin abrasions before giving him the all-clear and sending him on his way. Miles had just witnessed them massacre an untold number of zombies, a crime that could see them jailed for decades. For all he knew, they might snuff him out just to tie up loose ends.
He stayed hidden behind the Range Rover and watched Keenan walk over towards Campbell, who was sprawled out on the road a short distance away. Campbell was still human, but he wouldn’t stay that way for long. Miles estimated that he’d be a zombie in less than fifteen minutes.
Campbell saw Keenan coming his way. With great effort, he pushed himself up into a crouching position.
Keenan raised his Glock and aimed it at Campbell’s head.
“Whoa, whoa, easy man, easy.” Campbell raised both hands in a surrendering gesture. “Don’t shoot, I’m not a zom–”
Campbell was silenced with a bullet to the head from point-blank range.
His skull was blown apart like a smashed egg. Keenan wiped him out like he was stepping on a bug.
Miles flinched in horror at Keenan’s sheer callousness and complete absence of emotion, watching this all unfold from just a few metres away. Campbell was killed without even the slightest hesitation. For these guys, the distinction between “former human” and “current human” appeared to be mere semantics. He figured that he’d probably suffer a similar fate if they discovered him there.
So Miles did the only thing he could think of: he laid down on the road, in amongst all the zombie corpses and body parts, and played dead. He positioned himself in such a way that the top half of his body was underneath the Range Rover, with only his legs sticking out.
Keenan’s footsteps slowly grew louder as he circled the area.
Miles used all his focus and concentration on remaining absolutely still. He tried to control the motion of his chest by taking small shallow breaths. He knew that any movement he made, however slight, would probably be his last.
He saw Keenan’s boots in front of him as he stepped around the two crashed vehicles. His heart thumped like a Newton’s cradle, pounding so hard and so fast that he feared Keenan might feel the vibrations travelling through the ground.
Then he heard a noise, and it wasn’t Keenan. Something else. Something crawling nearby. Then a faint rasp. It came from his left.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw an undead corpse that still had a bit of life left in it. It was riddled with bullet holes, missing a left arm, and its head was twisted around at a forty-five degree angle. But it was still hanging in there.
It was Zombie Dwayne Marks.
Miles’ eyes widened as Zombie Dwayne slithered around on the ground a few metres away, using his one remaining tattoo-filled arm to drag himself closer.
He did what he could to repel Zombie Dwayne, but considering the position he was in he couldn’t do much more than offer a pleading facial gesture.
Zombie Dwayne kept on coming, teeth bared, pulling himself closer and closer.
Miles faced an unenviable choice; quick death by gunshot, or slow death by zombie. He squeezed his eyes closed and prayed for divine intervention.
Then a shot erupted, and Zombie Dwayne’s head detached from his body.
Miles tried to control his body’s involuntary shaking, but he wasn’t very effective. He was certain he had given himself away. Keenan was standing right beside him, and if he was watching there was no way he could fail to notice his quivering body.
But, by some miracle, he moved on.
Keenan stepped around Miles, and his footsteps slowly faded into the distance.
Miles remained in that same position, face down, hugging the road, for another ten minutes, until he was certain Keenan had left and returned to his truck.
He waited for the right moment, then jumped up and sprinted over to the set-up point outside the church. There he found Elliott, hunched over in a corner of the car park, sheltered behind the minibus.
“Elliott,” Miles said. “Get up. We have to get out of here.”
Miles helped him to his feet. Elliott clutched at his right shoulder, his face now devoid of colour. His shirt had a dark patch where the blood had seeped through.
There was a moment of silence between them, as Miles realised what this meant.
“This way,” Miles said quietly, and they hurried towards the nearest house.
Keenan sauntered back to his truck, invigorated by the wild target practice he and his sidekick had just enjoyed. He tossed his Glock into the glove compartment, then moved around to the back of the vehicle.
The cargo tray was loaded with an impressive cache of weapons, from AK-47s to M16 assault rifles, through to samurai swords and a homemade flamethrower. The two bumper stickers on the back articulated their shared worldviews. One asked, “What Would Jesus Do?”, next to an illustration of our lord and saviour wearing a wife beater and holding an Uzi. The other said, “Vote Marlowe: The Undead Don’t Run This Country, The People Run This Country”.
“This could be my favourite place yet,” Keenan said to his partner in crime. “Took about a hundred of ‘em out, and I reckon there’s still hundreds more where them ones came from.”
Grainger threw on a yellow raincoat and pulled a pair of plastic goggles down over his face. “I’m countin’ on it,” he said. He reached into the back of the truck and took out his next implement of torture. It was a chainsaw with a massive fifty-nine inch guide bar.
He yanked at the cord, and the chainsaw roared to life. “Ya’ comin’?” he said, a manic grin spread across his face.
Keenan was distracted by something ahead in the distance. He’d spotted two bodies sneaking away from the church car park and into one of the nearby houses. At first he thought it might have been a couple more zombies he’d somehow missed. But they moved too fast for that.
“You go ahead,” he replied, retrieving the 12 gauge and a handful of shells from the truck. “Looks like we got us some company. I might hafta go pay them a little visit first.”
It didn’t take long for Miles to realise that he hadn’t chosen the ideal location for Elliott and himself to hide out in. He had selected this dilapidated corner house because he knew it was unlocked – the front door was wide open. It wasn’t until they were inside the house that they discovered it had no front door. Or it did, but it wasn’t attached. It was leaning up against a wall on the opposite side of the room. The owners were apparently in the midst of some serious renovating before their untimely demise, with building equipment and power tools scattered throughout the place. The interior was completely gutted, walls had been knocked out, and all the doors and windows were missing.
Miles looked outside and could see Keenan casually strolling their way with a 12 gauge shotgun slung over his shoulder. He knew then that they had been spotted.
He began desperately searching for a way to secure the premises.
“Miles, don’t worry about it,” Elliott said as he slumped up against the wall. “I won’t be around for much longer.”
Miles ignored him. He picked the door up and carried it over to the front entrance.
“Did you hear what I said? Go save yourself. I might as well let him put me out of my misery.”
Miles put the door down and turned to face Elliott.
“Elliott, you can try and do the right and honourable thing all you want,” he said, calmly but firmly. “But there’s no way I�
�m going to let some trigger-happy psycho blow your head off.”
“Miles, listen–”
“The people that killed my parents were people just like this. I’m not going to let the same thing happen to you.”
As much as Elliott was ready to concede defeat, he could see it from Miles’ point of view. For him, this was personal. And he was right. He knew the end was drawing nearer with every passing minute, but he wasn’t about to just sit there and let it be at the hands of some inbred vigilante hick.
“Go out the back door,” Miles ordered. “Go through that fence and wait for me on the road that runs along the back of the property.”
Elliott struggled to his feet and brushed the sawdust off his clothes. “What are you going to do?”
“I’ll find us a car and meet you there.”
“No, I mean what are you going to do about our friend out there.”
“Oh, him. Don’t worry about him. I’ll think of something.”
“Come on, Miles. You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“You risked your life out there to save mine. I’m just doing what I can to return the favour.”
“I didn’t risk my life,” Elliott said sadly. “I was dead long before that.”
And then Elliott told Miles what had happened to him three nights ago; about how he’d been attacked by the two men and injected with the zombie blood, and that he’s basically been a ticking time bomb ever since.
“I could have turned at any time,” he said. “I’m surprised I’ve managed to last as long as I have.”
Miles could barely believe what he was hearing. “Why didn’t you say anything?” he said.
“I don’t know,” Elliott shrugged. “I just wanted to make it up to Steve and Adam. I didn’t want anyone worrying about me.”
Miles tried to respond, but failed to come up with anything that could even remotely articulate the avalanche of emotions he was experiencing at that moment. Hearing Elliott reveal this to him, on top of everything else he’d endured today – it was almost too much.
Elliott offered a weak smile, then turned and limped out towards the back door. “So I’ll see you in about ten minutes, then?” he said.
The back door closed, and Miles was alone in the house.
The only sound he could hear was a droning chainsaw, a few blocks away.
Through the front window he saw the Sasquatch-sized Keenan crossing the road with the 12 gauge at his side. He had to find a way to stop him. If he let him through he would kill Elliott for sure, and quite possibly him as well.
He scanned the room, looking for something to defend himself with.
Miles assumed a house full of power tools and building equipment would have an abundance of potential weapons, but now they all seemed about as useful as a paper umbrella. How would a power drill stop an angry 120 kilogram hillbilly? Or a nail gun, or a belt sander? No, he needed something else. Something more substantial.
Something like that sledgehammer, the one that had been used to demolish the wall between the kitchen and dining area, and was now propped up against the fireplace.
It took some effort to lift the sledgehammer and carry it across to the front door. Miles stood to the side and waited, gripping the handle tight.
Keenan’s heavy footsteps reverberated on the creaky wooden steps.
Chapter 27
Grainger sliced and diced his way through the main street of Graves End, leaving a bloody trail of body parts and zombie entrails in his wake. The chainsaw was massive, and almost as big as he was. It was completely excessive and impractical, something that would ordinarily be used to fell huge hundred-year-old trees. You didn’t need a degree in psychoanalysis to see that the portly five-foot three-inch Richard Grainger was overcompensating for his shortcomings.
His raincoat was dripping in gore, and he had to stop periodically to wipe the blood and viscera from his goggles.
Grainger couldn’t deny the sheer thrill he derived from this unrestrained brutality. He never liked to just kill the zombie straight away. He wanted to watch it suffer. Cutting the head off was fun, but starting with an arm or a hand, watching it flail around for a while, then slicing it in half from the groin up was a much more gratifying experience. Grainger’s unstable childhood, violent adolescence and repressed bisexuality all manifested itself in the form of this sadistic rampage.
He stopped for a breather. He looked back to where he’d been and admired the results of his handiwork. He had eviscerated an army of zombies, and there were still hundreds, maybe even thousands more to go. He felt like a kid on Christmas morning.
He looked to his left and found that he was standing outside the town church. Inside, he saw movement. A silhouette.
A smirk appeared on Grainger’s crumpled face. The thought of carving up a zombie in a place of worship held an undeniable thrill. It actually seemed quite appropriate.
After all, he was doing God’s work.
Keenan stumbled around the room like a drunken sailor caught in a violent storm. If this was a cartoon he’d have animated birds circling his head right about now.
Seconds earlier, Miles was waiting by the side of the door for Keenan to enter. As soon as Keenan set foot inside, he swung the sledgehammer with all his might. Keenan didn’t see it coming until the last possible moment, when he jerked his head to one side. The sledgehammer still made contact with the back of his head, but it was more of a glancing blow than a direct hit.
Keenan staggered around with his equilibrium thrown off-balance. He dropped the shotgun and clutched at his head.
Miles moved in for another swing, this time aiming for his leg. He knew that another blow to the head might kill him, but a busted kneecap would allow himself and Elliott ample time to escape.
But Keenan anticipated this, and this time he got in first. He lunged at Miles during the backswing and twisted the sledgehammer out of his hands. It fell to the floor with a heavy thud.
Miles was now seriously terrified. He had hoped that the hit to the head would have knocked Keenan out, or at least slowed him down. But it did the opposite – it woke him up. He could almost see the smoke pouring from his ears.
If he wasn’t sure what Keenan’s intentions were before, all doubt had now been removed.
Keenan grabbed Miles by the shirt. He lifted him up off the ground and slammed his forehead into his face. The sharp stabbing pain this caused was like nothing he’d ever felt. His eyes filled with water, and a river of blood gushed from his nose. His knees went weak, and he fell to the ground in a crumpled heap. It occurred to Miles that he’d never really been punched in the face before. He decided this was something he would have been happy to have gone his whole life without experiencing.
He tried standing, but his legs refused to take orders from his brain. The floor rose up on one side of the room, until he realised it was actually him falling back down. His face stung and his vision blurred, and he felt the urge to vomit. He forced down the bile pushing at the back of his throat.
He crawled across the floor, desperately searching for a way out.
The next thing he heard was the ominous sound of shells being loaded into a shotgun.
He saw a work bench up ahead and edged towards it on his hands and knees, somehow convinced that this wooden table might offer him protection from a psychotic hillbilly. He made it halfway under when he felt Keenan’s meaty hand wrap around his ankle and drag him back out.
Keenan held onto Miles’ foot with one hand and aimed the shotgun at his head with the other. This wasn’t easy; concussion was setting in, and Miles refused to keep still. Keenan was seeing two different versions of Miles, and he didn’t know which one he should be aiming at. It was a constant struggle just to remain conscious.
Keenan tried steadying himself. He rested one hand on a sawhorse, then pressed the barrel of the gun against Miles’ forehead.
Despite the dire situation he found himself in, Miles could appreciate the irony of having survived
multiple zombie encounters today only to be killed by a much more violent and dangerous species.
“Ready to die?” Keenan growled.
Miles made one final, desperate lunge. He reached back and grabbed hold of the power tool lying next to the work bench. It was a nail gun. He pressed it up against the underside of the sawhorse.
“Not just yet,” Miles replied.
Miles squeezed the trigger. A six-inch nail shot through the wooden saw horse and pierced Keenan’s hand.
Keenan howled like a wounded animal caught in a trap. He fired the shotgun, more of a reflex action than anything else, blowing a hole in the wall and creating a shower of plaster dust.
Miles leapt to his feet and drove three more nails into the top of Keenan’s hand.
The shotgun fell away. Keenan clutched at his hand, desperately trying to prise it free.
Miles kicked the weapon into the middle of the room, where it was well out of Keenan’s reach. He ignored the barrage of violent abuse and threats that Keenan hurled in his direction and made a dash for the front door.
He was free.
He took a few wobbly steps outside, holding on to the railing to stop from tumbling down the front steps. He staggered out onto the street, and then froze.
It was at that moment that Miles was confronted with the enormity of the destruction that Keenan and Grainger had wreaked upon the town. It was nothing short of a genocide. The town was littered with carved up bodies, the streets literally running red with blood. It was a scene of absolute devastation. He’d witnessed a lot over the last three years and thought maybe he’d become desensitised to it all. But this was like nothing else he’d ever seen. He hadn’t encountered anything this horrific since ...
He then recalled the last time he’d come upon an atrocity like this. It was almost three years ago. It was the day he came home to discover his parents and neighbours beaten to death and burnt to a crisp in his backyard. He remembered the overwhelming feelings of anger and disgust at whoever had done this, along with the impotent rage at being utterly powerless to do anything about it. He would probably never find out who was responsible. He would never truly have closure.
