The Nightmare Man: A Russian Zombie Novel

by Mick Franklin

  Vladimir also had a medical spray, a type of liquid nitrogen. As soon as the cone of mist touched Kirill’s wounds, they stopped bleeding.

  “There. You might actually live to see another day!”

  “What’s going on? Talk to me, brother.”

  “You know what’s going on. The zombies came.”

  “Who is doing this ... Who made the wall …?” Kirill was barely conscious.

  “Someone has to profit from every tragedy. Someone always does. I just happened to be on the winning side.”

  Kirill was shaking his head. “No …we’re meant to protect them …the people …you betrayed our own people.”

  “Are you fucking insane? This is Russia! We kill our own people if that’s what it takes to get the job done.”

  “Help me … let’s work together …”

  “Not this time. I owe you my life a hundred times over, so I’m trying to pay you back now. The injection should reverse the zombie infection.” Here, Vladimir laughed. “Hell, what do I know? It’s purely experimental technology. For all I know, it may actually speed up the zombie infection. But the science guys said it would work. It gives you a chance, anyway.”

  Kirill was breathing weakly, eyes closed.

  Vladimir said, “I’m leaving now, brother. I won’t let you die like this, but I’m not going to betray my employer, either. I’m leaving for good this time. Just in case you ever do find me, you better have your hands very fucking high in the air, Kirill. I don’t trust anybody.” He got to his feet, agile and powerful.

  He turned back to face the Nightmare Man. “But you were … my friend. We killed children together. We fought for Russia side by side. That means something.”

  Then he vanished.

  On the floor, Kirill’s eyes slowly blinked open. His strength was returning.

  HOTEL VIDGOF – the most expensive hotel in Chelyabinsk

  Galloway stared at the giant screen. The live feed from Chelyabinsk had been cut off for almost one hour. The studio was running reruns of highlights of the events that had taken place in the city. The battle in the Tank Academy had been replayed from various different camera angles, the tech guys cleverly editing the footage to make it look like it was almost an entirely different battle. Galloway himself had tried his best to keep the audience at ease, bringing individuals out on stage and putting an arm around them and asking them who they thought would be the last contestant on Dom 3. He had even tried interviewing some of the security guards, but that had been an embarrassing act, demonstrating how pointless it was to put a man in front of the camera who responded to every question with grunts.

  He gave his very best smile as he looked up to the studio audience. Two hundred rich people who had paid for the privilege of seeing the country’s most exclusive show: Dom 3. Such a spectacle couldn’t be televised or streamed, of course; hackers would uncover it. Government agencies from foreign countries that watched everything Russia did would be on that in a second. Human rights activists and bleeding hearts who hated to see the mistreatment of poor people would have been crying everywhere. Yeah, right. No one cared about the poor people they walked past them every day; the only time those anonymous people ever became important was when politicians wanted to parade their conscience on the world stage and show how much money they were giving to the Ukraine’s poor, which was Russia’s equivalent of what Africa was for the West. Galloway had seen poor people fishing through his garbage bin every morning looking for scraps to eat. Funny how the poor weren’t important then, but when you tried to make them useful, tried to give their lives some meaning, then suddenly it became an issue.

  No, the only way to conduct the show safely without any other country finding out was to have the studio right in the heart of the city, right where the action was. And what better venue than Hotel Vidgof, Chelyabinsk’s most prestigious hotel? The guests were able to relax and retire to their hotel rooms when they wanted to, able to watch the action on their own private televisions while they sipped champagne and lay on their king-sized beds. Usually, of course, the guests preferred the large screen in the conference room, enjoying the atmosphere of Galloway’s rantings and the energy of the audience.

  Two hundred seats. The seats were simple but adequate, served by topless beautiful Russian girls who made ten years wages for working here for one day. They were microchipped and made to understand that if they ever talked about what they saw here, they would be executed. As Stalin used to say, “No person, no problem.” The same methods were applied to the security guards.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I assure you our technicians are working to fix this problem right now,” Galloway told the audience. “We’ll have you watching the exciting escapades of the Nightmare Man again in no time. You can watch Sasha, and the Medved, and find out how the New Mafia is run with Masha and Rhyza having joint council –”

  “Fuck you, moron!” shouted a Babushka from the third row. “We paid a lot of money to be here. More than enough to buy this studio. You get us what we paid for, right now.”

  Growing voices of agreement murmured together. Galloway lost his composure for a moment, scanning the faces of two hundred rich people who had gathered here today to watch Dom 3. The battle at the Tank Academy had drawn everybody from their hotel rooms to this improvised studio.

  “Please, if you will just exercise some patience –”

  “Boss, the Nightmare Man’s here.”

  Galloway turned to his security captain, “What the fuck did you just say?”

  The captain indicated a monitor that showed the lone Nightmare Man walking towards the studio from outside.

  Galloway laughed. “This ought to be good! One guy against all the security in here. Alright, maybe we can turn this around after all. Get the cameras going. We’re going to finish this show on a high.”

  By now, the audience was riled, many of the patrons standing, furious at the delays.

  Galloway spoke, “We have an extraordinary surprise for you. It seems the Nightmare Man is here. He’s found his way to the heart of the mystery. I’m going to go outside and meet the man himself now. Let’s find out what he’s got to say for himself.”

  All of a sudden, there was dead silence in the studio. There was a flat tone while the screen changed from endless reruns to an image of the Nightmare Man marching relentlessly towards the building, apparently unarmed.

  Outside, Galloway spoke to the guards by the gate. “Any trouble, any fucking trouble at all you kill him, clear? I don’t care if all he meant to do was scratch his nose; if he makes a move, I want him shot,” he took a savage drag on his cigarette, “fifty times. Don’t even let him come back as a zombie. Shoot him and make sure he’s fucking dead.”

  He cast what was left of the cigarette into the bushes. There were seven guards, all armed with automatic rifles. That should be enough to stop even the Nightmare Man.

  The cameraman appeared; he had been hastily awoken and had assembled his camera gear. “Ready, boss.”

  “Keep the camera on him, you fucking idiot. If you screw this up, I’ll have you shot.”

  Galloway walked boldly towards the Nightmare Man, his cameraman struggling to keep up with the heavy gear.

  “Hello, Kirill. It’s a pleasure to meet you in person.”

  “Was it you? Did you put all those zombies in the city?”

  “No, that was a side effect of the meteor storm, my friend. We had nothing to do with the actual outbreak of the zombies.”

  “You just happened to be filming.”

  The cameraman was within two metres of the Nightmare Man.

  “It was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up. But hey, you did extremely well. You made it this far alive! We lost track of you for a while there. Would you like to tell the audience what happened?”

  “Hey, shithead,” said the Nightmare Man, “there’s a reason they call me the Nightmare Man.”

  “Oh, and what’s that?”

  “I’m going to kill you an
d everyone else who was involved in this. That’s what I do. I kill the enemies of Mother Russia.”

  Galloway laughed. “I’ve got seven men with guns aimed at you. Just what is it you think you can do here?”

  Kirill inhaled, eyes blazing at Galloway. Then he nodded. There were seven shots in quick succession. In less than two seconds, all seven of Galloway’s men lay dead from sniper fire. They had all been killed by headshots.

  Galloway noticed three Spetsnaz snipers stand up and slowly begin to approach them, sniper rifles carried with casual ease. These were the men who were meant to be guarding the perimeter to stop anyone from entering Chelyabinsk. He did not notice that The Sergeant, Vladimir, was not present.

  The TV host looked back to the studio, a distance that seemed an incredibly long way in the snow. He looked into the clear eyes of the Nightmare Man. The cameraman was still filming.

  “Let’s go,” said the Nightmare Man as he seized the television host. As they walked, Galloway noticed a group of people arrive behind the snipers. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought it was the Medved, Karl, Masha and the others.

  Back inside the studio, Kirill shoved the TV host in front of him. The audience was remarkably calm, probably believing this was part of the show. Kirill held a handgun as he moved Galloway to the centre stage.

  Security guards appeared from the back of the audience area, running and holding compact machine guns before them.

  Kirill called out to them, his voice amplified by the speakers. “Throw down your weapons and run away. If you do that, I promise you my snipers won’t harm you. You have my word you will walk away from here alive.”

  The security guards hesitated, looking to each other, before ditching their weapons in the aisles and running for their lives.

  The serving girls stood frozen, terrified, aware this wasn’t part of the show.

  Kirill addressed them, “Deyushki, davay.”

  The girls never looked back as they fled the hotel.

  Now Kirill and Galloway were joined by some of the other Chelyabinsk survivors, including Karl, Sasha, and the Medved. They were all armed.

  “You saw everything that happened in Chel,” Kirill said to Galloway. “Do you know where my brother is?”

  “I do, but he’s not here,” said the television host, hands raised, finally realising the game was up. He knew his only hope was to keep talking and hope that something he said would inspire the Nightmare Man to allow him to leave with his life.

  “I saw the video of him in Moscow. He was trying to escape Metro 2,” said Galloway. “He was injured badly. I don’t know how. But they found him when they sent in the containment teams. The whole thing was a mess … they never should have got out. I’m sorry, man, truly I am. Your brother didn’t make it. He died in those tunnels. He became a zombie and he got rounded up like all the others.”

  “Is he still in Moscow?”

  “No, most of the zombies from that outbreak were kept in the Moscow facility, in the Metro 2. Of course, they built better cells for them after they had escaped. But your brother was the only one who was sent out of there. He got sent to help start another containment centre.”

  “Where was he sent?”

  “Zombie Containment Edinburgh,” said the television host. “It’s in the United Kingdom. It’s a relatively new facility. They have had a couple of outbreaks already – the team there are fucking retards – but the clean-up crews were able to round the zombies up before any serious harm could be done.”

  Kirill released Galloway’s jacket, talking to himself, “So the United Kingdom is keeping my brother as a zombie? I’ll burn the entire fucking United Kingdom to the ground. People will be too scared to set foot outside their houses, but it won’t matter. They’re all as good as dead.”

  Masha asked Kirill, “What do you want to do with him?”

  But it was Karl who answered. “I’ll talk to him.”

  Sasha asked Karl, “Do … do you think you will be able to get any information out of him?”

  The KGB officer paused for a moment. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Kirill met Karl’s eyes. “Find out everything about these containment centres. By the sounds of things, this has spread beyond Russia.”

  The Bear said, “We don’t know if there are any more cities in Russia like Chelyabinsk that have been taken over. Russia may now be a very dangerous place, more than normal. We could potentially have a lot of towns to clean up.”

  Masha said, “The Moscow centre might be a better place to start. We might be able to stop the problem altogether.”

  Karl smiled faintly at Galloway. “You’ll be my masterpiece.”

  “Can I leave you to investigate the Moscow centre?” Kirill asked the Medved. “And if necessary, gain control of any infected towns that may be out there?”

  “Sure, but why aren’t you coming with us?”

  “I will join you. But I’m going to visit Edinburgh first. In the meantime, my Spetsnaz will help you.”

  “Uh, sir,” Sasha asked Kirill, “What would you like me to do?”

  “You’re an honorary Spetsnaz now. My guys will train you every day, teach you what it takes to be one of us. They’ll look after you.”

  Sasha’s eyes lit up. To become a Spetsnaz …

  Kirill regarded the rest of his crew. “That just leaves one more problem. Now we need to deal with these people who enjoyed watching the suffering of Russian citizens.”

  The team moved toward the studio audience as one, casually raising their weapons. By now the studio audience had finally woken up to the danger. Various government ministers and lawyers cringed in their seats, begging for their lives, sobbing and sputtering tearfully.

  The Chelyabinsk survivors levelled their guns at the studio audience.

  They fired one shot each, and for each shot fired, one member of the audience fell. But they did not stay dead long. They shook back to unlife, pale eyes opening upon the world, and rose again, descending upon the screeching audience and ripping them apart, eating them alive, tearing out entrails, feasting on eyeballs and biting off faces, ripping limbs out of their sockets. There was nowhere to run, no way to escape, as all the doors had been locked by the Spetsnaz soldiers.

  The screams were unending.

  Later, the zombies who were able to move noticed the remaining humans standing calmly on the stage. The monsters hissed, as if expecting a trap, but then began to converge on the stage, desperate to eat the humans alive. It was the only thought they had.

  The Chelyabinsk team did not retreat. Masha and Karl smiled as the horde got closer. They raised their weapons. Galloway had his hands tied behind his back now, his eyes wide – he had never seen a zombie up close. The Bear held an enormous machine gun casually, as if they were all going out for a drink rather than staring down a horde of the living dead. Anton held a pistol steadily, nervous but controlling himself. Sasha held a pistol in each hand, a look of amusement in his eye. Masha held her sniper rifle, ready. Karl grinned maniacally, pistol aimed at the crowd. The Nightmare Man regarded the approaching threat. His eyes were fierce, his jaw tense. He bared his teeth, raising a machine gun.

  As the first zombies climbed the stage, the team of survivors opened fire, guns blazing, tearing the horde apart, brains and skull fragments flying everywhere. Bullets flew for what seemed like minutes and streams of spent casings hit the floor, bouncing, and were still.

  Part 4

  THE NIGHTMARE MAN

  ZOMBIE CONTAINMENT EDINBURGH

  The cell was more of a cavern. The walls were rough stone; water bled down them. There was almost no light, only a slim slice of illumination at the base of the door. No more than one person could fit comfortably into the cell. There was no bed, not even a toilet. There were shackles on the wall, and these lay open, the room’s single occupant sitting against the wall beneath them. He wore stained clothes, like a battlefield surgeon. His skin was dirty, his nails black. He barely seemed to be alive.

/>   The cell door opened and light bloomed inwards. The zombie on the floor was lit up; it reacted immediately, savagely snapped at the air. In a surge of motion, the zombie was on its feet.

  The man who had opened the cell door said, “Aw, shit!” and quickly tipped out a plate of food onto the floor. He scampered back out the cell, a split second before the zombie could reach him. The door panel opened and the man stared back through at the zombie, who ignored the raw meat on the floor and was instead ruthlessly attacking the door, trying to reach the man on the other side. The man wore a blue baseball jacket; he was tall and bald. He breathed heavily, frozen before the zombie, perhaps waiting to be reassured that the glass would hold.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” he said after a few moments and walked away. The zombie ran violently against the door and the tall man jumped. He swallowed thickly and then walked away again, faster this time.

  The light shone through the open panel and lit the zombie’s face in hellish un-life. It was the face of Biter, the Nightmare Man’s brother.

  In the security room, Stevie sat on the couch drinking a bottle of beer. Stevie was a big guy, well over six foot tall. The beer he drank was called “Biter.” It was spelled with two tees and one was crossed out, to change the word from “bitter” to “biter.”

  “How you enjoying your home brew, Stevie?” ask John, turning away from the monitors.

  “I don’t know, man,” said Stevie. “I’ve been looking for a bottle opener for the past five minutes.”

  Stevie seemed to be seeing something in the air that John couldn’t see, but that was normal when you drank Biter beer, which contained strong hallucinogens. At that point, Stevie was seeing faces in the walls. Earlier in the afternoon, he had been holding a conversation with a talking dog and a talking French cat smoking a cigarette.

  John glanced back at the monitors. “That’s Mick feeding the zombies. He’ll be back in a minute.”