by Brown, TW
Shadiyah slung the leather belt over her shoulder and picked up her sister’s school backpack. When she stood, she saw her reflection in the mirror that was mounted on the wall by the arch next to the front room door. She paused to take in what she saw.
Before all this insanity involving the dead returning as zombies that hungered for the living, she had worked in an opticians shop. Every day, she had put on her makeup, dressed nice, and then hopped on the bus. Her wavy hair had always been kept long, and despite how much her mother complained that such personal vanity was inappropriate, Shadiyah went the extra effort to straighten her thick black locks.
Now, her hair was a nest of unruly curls that had not seen a brush for over a week. She had not even thought about such frivolous things as makeup since the day her father had risen and killed their mother in this little apartment. Yet, and she could not help herself, her big dark eyes and feminine curves still shown through, hinting at the beauty hidden under the dirt and grime. Shadiyah knew from an early age that she was pretty. Not just because her parents said so; that was a parent’s duty. No, she began noticing how the boys looked at her, how even some men would turn as she passed.
She had dreamed of becoming a model. However, when she had stopped at a small agency one day on a whim, she had seen those dreams crushed. Yes, she was easily as pretty as any of the girls sitting or standing in the lobby. However, at barely five feet tall, she was lacking in height.
“Perhaps you might consider acting,” one of her friends had whispered that day.
Shadiyah shook herself free of those memories. She needed to be focused on the here and the now. Letting her mind wander would be an invitation to becoming one of those things. The news had made it very clear in the end: a bite or scratch from one of the undead would result in the wounded individual becoming another member of the growing horde within seventy-two hours.
Stopping at the front door, she glanced back at her sister again. Assi had actually moved to the couch. She still had that ridiculous doll clutched to her chest, but at least she’d gotten up from the floor.
Being as careful and as quiet as possible, Shadiyah turned the deadbolt and then opened the door a crack. If the smell inside the flat was bad, it was sickeningly overwhelming in the corridor. Opening the door a bit further, she could not help but pause to glance down at the bodies of her parents.
Squeezing out, she pulled the door shut behind her, used the key to lock the deadbolt, and then took in her surroundings. The long corridor looked like something from a bad horror film. There were bodies (or parts of bodies in many cases) strewn on the floor. Glancing down, she saw the corpses of her parents. Her father still only had the one bite on his arm; the bandage still clinging in places and stained black from the dried blood. The only other injury was where the ice pick still jutted from his temple. The last reports on BBC News had made it clear that only a traumatic strike to the brain could stop these abominations.
Three of the undead had met their end a few doors down, each of them having been beat to the point where their skulls had busted open and their brains splattered in wide arcs. Unfortunately, it looked as if the victor had also become part of the spoils. A man was seated against the wall, a cricket bat at his side. He had slit his wrists.
Unfortunately, that had not prevented the infection from the nasty rip on his right arm from taking hold. The man’s head lolled a bit as it turned her direction. Then, in bird-like fits, it slowly locked on to her and the man began to rise awkwardly to his feet. His eyes were filmed over, and in the poor lights from above, they almost looked as gray as his skin, minus the blue hints around the edges, The black tracers that riddled his eyes looked even darker, adding to the sinister menace this zombie presented as it stood, still clutching the bat in one hand.
Shadiyah had not seen or heard any reports about the zombies using weapons; yet, here one was, slowly staggering her direction with the bat in its hand. She gripped and re-gripped her father’s scimitar as the zombie made its slow progress towards her. When it was about ten feet away, it brought up its arms, reaching for her. In the process, the bat fell from its grip and clattered to the floor.
Shadiyah smiled and stepped in to attack. Her swing came in and connected just below the man’s temple. There was a jolt of pain as the vibrations down the blade reached the hilt. Instinctively, she let go of the weapon. The zombie collapsed to the floor and ceased to move.
Shadiyah took a tentative step forward and toed the corpse on the shoulder. When nothing happened, she moved in and worked her weapon free. She wiped the blade on the man’s pants and was reaching for the cricket bat when the door to her left opened. Leaping back, she brought up her blade and prepared to swing again. Already, her mind was telling her to be prepared for the shock of impact. She could not be dropping her weapon every time she hit one of those monsters. However, it was no monster that now stood in the doorway.
“Is that you, Shaddi?” an older woman’s voice rasped.
“Mrs. Raye,” Shadiyah breathed. “What are you doing out here?”
“I heard a fuss outside my door. I am tired of waiting for trouble to come knocking on my door and thought it was high time I ventured forth,” Henrietta Raye harrumphed as she stepped into the hallway.
The woman’s short gray hair was precise, her blush applied with perfection, and that familiar slash of bright red lipstick made a striking contrast to Shadiyah’s rumpled and unkempt appearance. The woman was actually wearing a brown paisley jumpsuit and a heavy looking gold necklace. She held a metal-tipped cane in her hand like it was a rapier. Her blue eyes glittered as she surveyed the hallway.
“You do realize what is happening?” Shadiyah asked.
Mrs. Raye had always been known as a bit of an eccentric. The rumor was that she was filthy rich but extremely miserly (which explained why she lived here instead of some posh flat in a much better neighborhood).
“From what they were saying on the telly, the dead are attacking the living like in those ridiculous old movies.” Mrs. Raye stepped forward and poked the zombie that Shadiyah had taken down with her cane. “And only a ding to the brain seems to be how you take them down.”
A noise from down the hall interrupted the moment and three more figures rounded the corner. Two of them were familiar to Shadiyah. They were part of the little gang of troublemakers that liked to skulk around the front of the building and say rude things to every female that passed.
“Nice to see that the universe spits back a bit of karma every once in a while,” Mrs. Raye scoffed when it was clear that the young toughs had been ripped into by zombies. One of them had his insides spooling out of a hideous rip in his ample belly. She thought he went by the name of “Hippo” or something like that.
The two women advanced on the trio of zombies and put them down with surprising quickness. Shadiyah was more than a little impressed at how the older woman brought the tip of the cane up and shoved it into the eye socket of Hippo.
“So, young lady,” the woman spoke as she wiped off her cane on the sleeve of the shirt worn by the zombie she had just dropped, “what finally brings you out of your house?”
Shadiyah shook her head and gave a shrug. “We are almost out of food. I thought it might be best if I gather some supplies before we become desperate.”
“I’m so sorry, dear,” the woman said with a slap of her hand on her thigh. “I saw your poor parents outside the door. I am being terribly insensitive. As for the food, where do you think to go?”
“I figure I would go door-to-door on this floor first and see who answers. It can’t imagine we are the only ones left. Perhaps it would be a good idea to clear the floor and secure it?”
The older woman gave a nod of her head. “Good to see you are dismissing all that nonsense on the telly about making a run for the emergency centers. A friend of mine from America said that their government was doing the same thing, but reports were not too long in coming that those places are now a hive for the zombies
as folks who came in infected have died and come back to attack all the people packed in like sardines. The panic only acted to make it worse and as many of the poor fools died in the stampede as fell to the zombies during the attempts to flee.”
Shadiyah was speechless. This woman was talking about zombies like it was no big deal. She had seen it firsthand with her parents and still had trouble accepting things for what they were.
“If we secure this floor and work our way up first, I think we can wait things out in this tower until everything is put in place,” Mrs. Raye said with a smack of her lips.
“You really think that things will be fixed?” Shadiyah winced at the plaintive sound of her voice. She’d been the strong one for her sister these past few days. Now, she just wanted to lean on somebody else for a while.
“I have to,” Mrs. Raye said, accepting the younger girl in a one-armed hug. “Otherwise I might as well just jump out my window and end it fast.”
Thirty minutes later, they had gone to the doors of the other residents on the floor. Only one person had answered: Cyrus Ivanoff, a man at least ten years older than Mrs. Raye and barely able to walk.
“Looks like everybody on this floor that could, made a run for it,” Mrs. Raye sniffed after they assured Mr. Ivanoff that he should wait in his flat, and that they would check in on him again very soon.
Shadiyah could not admit to being very surprised. She had seen the trickle of residents leaving with bags and suitcases when those first announcements had been made on the news. Supposedly, an emergency shelter had been established at the Wortley Recreation Grounds. Army units had come in and erected a fence as well as large tents. She imagined that the idea was to try and keep as many people together as possible in order to allow them all to slip into some sense of security which would prevent mass panic.
Not two days later, there had been a noise that took her some time to actually identify: Gunfire. That lasted for about five minutes before it became sporadic and eventually stopped. By morning, several plumes of smoke could be seen rising from the west in the direction of the obviously failed shelter.
There had been other locations in the area, but that one was the largest. That also marked the day of the last broadcast on the television or the radio. The speed in which things happened in the end had been sudden.
“Perhaps we should gather what we can first before going up,” Shadiyah suggested to Mrs. Raye.
Assi had been alone for almost an hour. It would be a good idea to bring in some food and check on her before moving on. Mrs. Raye shrugged and they returned to the first flat they had checked. The door had been locked, but Mrs. Raye proved to be full of surprises as she scuttled back to her flat and returned with a small black case. In moments, the lock had been picked and the two were inside and loading up a few bags with anything that they could find.
They returned to find Assi standing at the window. The girl did not so much as acknowledge their presence. Shadiyah tapped her on the shoulder and had to finally physically take her sister by the shoulders and turn her around.
The click of the door closing made Shadiyah turn around to discover that her elderly cohort had decided to exit. She huffed in frustration and then returned her attention to her sister.
“I brought food!” she tried to say with as much cheerfulness as she could muster.
The truth was that she wanted to slap the girl. Yes, things were terrible, and yes, she had witnessed the death of their parents, but it had been Shadiyah who had been the one to put them both down. She’d been the one to have to grab their father by the hair and yank his head back as the man ripped out their mother’s throat.
Assi had remained curled up in a ball on the floor of the hallway and gone into hysterics. She had done nothing to help put their parents to rest, much less offer a hand to carry them out to the hallway when they began to smell so bad that it was impossible to keep them wrapped in a blanket on their bed and wait for somebody to come take them away.
“Look, little sister,” Shadiyah walked up and put her hand on Assi’s shoulder, turning the girl to face her, “I know this is horrible. I know it feels like a nightmare, and you just want to wake up, but that isn’t going to happen. This is…”
She looked out the window at the tendrils of smoke rising from several locations. This was a living nightmare; there was no doubt about it. However, the emphasis needed to be on the living part. She was not ready to just give up.
Sure, it looked as if the people in power had let this get away. There had been all the talk about how there was nothing to be alarmed about, and that things would right themselves soon enough. When the “zed” word began popping up, it had been shouted down and ridiculed.
There had been some American doctor that was on television over and over talking about how this was all a bunch of juvenile nonsense. Shadiyah still recalled her last transmission where it was clear that she was now one of the infected. At least she had finally admitted her error.
Shadiyah laughed. Assi’s head twitched and the younger girl peered up at her sister with confusion making its way through to at last give her some semblance of an emotion on her face.
“What is so funny?” her little sister asked.
“Just remembering…” Shadiyah paused, she had a chance to hopefully pull her sister out of being almost as visibly alive as those walking corpses she’d just put down. “Just thinking that I bet Miranda Wood is probably crying about not being able to get her hair done. At least now we will see what color it really is.”
Assi’s face actually seemed to brighten just a shade. Obviously that had been the right thing to say. Of course, now that Shadiyah thought about it, she was wondering how the self-important little bitch was holding up.
Miranda Wood was eighteen going on thirty-five. She had long hair that came all the way to her waist, and less cleavage than a twelve-year-old boy. She had skin the color of milk that was so translucent that you could see the blue veins running underneath. Yet, despite all that, she was sickeningly pretty; even worse, she acted like she knew everything. The only thing rumored that she knew for sure was how to trade giving a bloke a hand job in exchange for a few pounds that she would quickly spend on clothes and having her hair dyed a different color almost every month.
As loose and slutty as Miranda Wood was known to be, her older brother more than made up for it in his squareness. He was supposedly about to become a member of the West Yorkshire Police Force. Simon Wood was a tall man with his blond hair kept cut short and parted on the side. He had a runner’s body, long, lean, and lanky. He always looked so serious, and did not say much unless you spoke to him directly. Shadiyah assumed that had to be due to the fact that his sister was always striving to be the center of attention.
The two sisters ate in silence. When they finished a few tins of beef and some Super Noodles, Assi pushed her empty bowl away, lay down, turned her back, and pulled a blanket up over her shoulders.
Shadiyah scowled. Not for the first time, she had to resist the urge to reach over, yank her sister around, and slap some sense into the girl. After a few deep breaths, she cleaned up their small mess of disposable plates and utensils and then went back to the window to watch darkness fall on the city of Leeds.
It was just at that final few moments before the sun would dip down and plunge the world into darkness when the power went out for good. Because of the clouds, the world seemed even darker. Shadiyah could not even see the streets below.
Just as well, she thought. Only moments before, her eyes had been drawn to the rail tracks just to the south of the Clyde Court towers. A small mob of perhaps a hundred or so of the walking dead were moving along, headed in a southwestern direction. If she remembered correctly, the tracks bent due south and headed straight for those snobs in Cottingly.
In the darkness, Shadiyah found her way to the sofa and sat down. She drifted off to a mixture of the moans of the undead and the whimpers of her sister.
***
Waking
to the sounds of somebody knocking on the door was bad; waking to the shrieks of her sister Assi was enough to make Shadiyah’s already foul mood just a bit darker. She got up, shot a glare at her trembling little sister that gave a clear message to be quiet, and then trudged to the door.
“We don’t want any.” She glanced over her shoulder and winked at Assi. The girl returned a nervous smile.
“Open the door, you little thief.”
“Mrs. Raye!” Shadiyah threw open the door and flashed a smile at the older woman.
“Came to see if you might be game to venture downstairs and see what we might find. Hello, poppet.” The old woman strode in like she owned the place and gave a curt nod and greeting to the young girl curled up in the blankets. “I think we should grab anything like fresh fruit and vegetables right now and eat it before it all goes off. This place smells bad enough. With the power going down, it is about to get much worse I am afraid.”
“Sounds like a good idea.” Shadiyah turned to her sister. “You want to come along?” She hoped desperately that the girl would refuse, and had to fight to hide her relief when Assi gave a fast shake of the head.
“Lock up behind me. I will get back as soon as I can. Don’t open the door for anybody, I have my key.”
“You think that will actually be a problem?” Mrs. Raye scoffed as the door closed. “That child looks like she will piss herself if her shadow moves.”
Shadiyah ignored the quip and headed for the emergency stairs. Opening the door, she paused. The stairwell was shrouded in complete and utter darkness. Strange scuffing sounds and what might have been a moan echoed up from the pitch black square of oblivion.
Mrs. Raye edged around her and pulled out a small silver flashlight. She pushed a small button, and a dazzling beam of blue-white light danced in front of them.
