“What are you having?” Jessica asked as the young couple took their seats. Robert rose and allowed them to take his seat, while he moved to sit in the row directly before Paul and Jessica, who had rapidly become the central point of the group.
“A boy. A baby boy,” Tracey beamed, unable to hide her delight. “A real bundle of joy.” She gleamed at the merest mention of her unborn child.
“Aren’t you afraid of…?” Jessica began, but stopped the moment the smile began to fade from Tracey’s face.
“We try not to think about it. I mean, there were always bad things in the world. This is just one more thing for the list. Besides, we’re being rescued – a fresh start. What better place to raise a new life?” Tracy rested her hands on her stomach and gently drummed her fingertips over her body’s extended curve.
“Excuse me one second.” Jessica rose and walked down the cabin toward the cockpit door. She knocked three times in quick succession. Paul watched, while listening to the conversation that had started between Robert and Alan. The door to the cockpit opened, and with a look over her shoulder, Jessica disappeared. The expression that Paul had seen on her face troubled him, but in the low light and with the gentle shake of the cabin a seemingly constant companion, he wrote it off as being nothing. She was still weak from her suicide attempt, after all.
“I must admit, it is refreshing to hear people being so positive. I have to ask…I mean, with you being pregnant, Tracey, your…um, mobility is somewhat reduced?” Paul thought carefully of his words, remembering how easily his wife misinterpreted his words during her pregnancies. He found himself tense, waiting for the explosion, the accusations of insensitivity. None came.
“We survived. The same as everybody else did. But…” She began but stopped herself, her eyes turning down to stare at her lap.
“What?” Paul prompted. His grip on the pen tightened, His fingers began to tingle.
“Well, something strange happened, but it was probably nothing…” Tracey looked at Paul, and he nodded at her.
“Go on, tell me.”
Chapter 17 – Tracey and Alan Roberts
“Honey, where are the plates?” Tracey called from the kitchen. She had four pans cooking on the stove, and found herself crouched down, as best she could, sorting through the array of large moving boxes that littered the kitchen.
“Um, I think they are in the box marked china and breakables,” Alan called back from the living room, where he was also sorting through a selection of boxes marked DVD’s / Vinyl.
“I’m looking in that one, but it is filled with bed linen,” Tracey called back. “I think I saw some paper plates from the barbeque last summer lying around. Do you mind eating off a paper plate?” she asked as she drifted through the foreign kitchen, opening every cupboard in the place until she found what she was looking for.
“Fine by me,” Alan called as she slipped the last few DVDs from the box onto the shelf.
They had been moving all week, slowly bringing stuff across from the small flat they had lived in. The new furniture they had bought arrived first. Due to Tracey’s pregnancy, they decided to take it slow. It was to be their first night in the new house. The move had gone smoothly – too smoothly – Alan had been saying. No arguments. Not that they ever really argued. There were no lost or badly damaged items, save for a cup that Alan broke when packing.
“It feels like we should be doing this differently. You know, making a bigger deal out of it,” Tracey said as she twisted the pasta strands around her fork.
“Yeah, but we can have some people round for dinner next week or something. Give us time to settle in and get everything settled. It will give this flu that’s going around the chance to pass through also.” Alan slurped a long, sauce-covered strand into his mouth. It flicked and whipped like a snake’s tail; as if it was resisting its fate.
“Yeah, I just hope we don’t get it. It sounds bad. My aunt came down with it two days ago and they took her into the hospital.” Tracey laid her fork on her plate and pushed it into the center of the table. “I’m stuffed. Besides, I bought a chocolate lava cake for us.” She smiled.
“You do realize the contradiction there, right?” Alan laughed playfully at his wife.
“Hey, chocolate doesn’t count! There is always room for chocolate!” Tracey joined his laughter, and the sound of it filled the house, which had been empty for some time before they purchased it. Everything about the move, the moment, even the timing, felt right.
They had drawn several funny looks, moving so late in the pregnancy. Both argued it was easier than moving with a newborn baby, and the flat they had lived in was just too small.
After their meal, with the dishes left for the morning, the couple headed up the stairs to bed. They were exhausted, but the moment they slipped between the sheets and their warm flesh connected, passions grew, and feelings stirred. They melted into one another and away from the world around them. Engulfed by their passion, they made love and fell asleep in one another’s arms.
The cool air of early morning woke them and, as was so often their way, they made love again. The cries of their ecstasy mirrored the agony felt in the house beside them. Where the neighbor they had yet to meet had been ripped apart from the belly up by her young child.
With his mother eaten, her hollowed out carcass strewn on the bed, the child headed out into the world in search of fresh meat, its hunger uncontrollable. He could smell the lovers from outside of the property. As could the others that stumbled into the streets, their stiff, clumsy frames coated with fresh gore.
“I’m in the mood for breakfast,” Tracey spoke once her breathing had returned to normal. “Pancakes.” She smiled.
“I thought those sort of cravings were only at the start of pregnancy.” Alan smiled at her. Tracey had spent a large portion of her childhood in the United States, and pancakes for breakfast were one of the few things she still insisted upon from time to time.
“You stay here. I’ll make them. You always make them too thin.” Tracey stuck her tongue out in jest as she rose. Her naked body shivered in the cool room.
Alan threw out a wolf whistle as she got dressed, which received him another smile and cheeky tongue flash.
Tracey headed downstairs, allowing herself a moment to enjoy the large house; the space from wall to wall and floor to ceiling. Everything felt open and wonderful. She loved her kitchen, and busied herself with making breakfast, and washing up the pans from the night before.
Her mind was wandering the avenues of its own existence, following a merry path through fields of happy memories, when a knock at the door pulled Tracy back to reality. It was not so much a knock, as a crash. Tracey jumped, and gave a scream when she saw the dirty child’s face by the door. Being a Primary school teacher, Tracey was no stranger to seeing children with cuts and bruises, so even with the quantity of blood that was on the child, she remained calm.
Above her, she heard Alan call out. Obviously, he too had heard the crash against the door.
“It’s fine, honey. It’s a kid, but I think he’s hurt,” she called out as she moved toward the door, simultaneously thinking about where she had packed the first aid kit.
“Tracey…wait…don’t open the…” Alan raced down the stairs, his footfalls heavy slaps against the wooden flooring. He sprinted into the kitchen with his sentence half finished, but he was too late. Tracey had opened the door, and the child, whose blood encrusted face had appeared before the door so suddenly, charged. He lunged at Tracy, his jaws snapping. She gave a scream and jumped backward. The child entered the house and gazed at Tracey. It took one look at her and stopped. Its eyes moved up and down her body, then its attention turned away, and his gaze fell upon Alan, who was in the background. Tracey fell away from the child’s vision, and it went directly for Alan.
The child was across the kitchen before Tracey had time to think about what had happened. Alan on the other hand, reacted quicker. He had seen the others from the bedroom wi
ndow. He had seen a man rip the arm off another man only to start eating the dripping, raw flesh straight from the bone. He had watched a group of adults shovel the juicy innards of a fat man into their salivating jowls. Another woman, a young single mother he had been chatting to the day before about baby care products came running out of her house. He knew it was her from the clothes she wore, rather than anything else. She was missing her face; it had been ripped clean from her skull, leaving nothing but the denuded flesh beneath. She ran a few meters into the street; her screams a sound akin to fingers on a blackboard in the way they made Alan’s skin tingle. Her lidless eyes were a bright white against the red backdrop, until she finally fell, landing on her face in the street.
Alan sidestepped the charging child, and kicked out at it. The small legs buckled and the kid fell to the floor with a grunt. Scrambling over to his wife, Alan turned around just as the child got back to its feet. It charged again, stumbled left and right as it moved, but never was there any doubt about it making the journey across the room.
“Alan, what’s wrong…why did you…why is it?” Tracey screamed.
“You need to stay calm, Tracey. Just don’t worry about this,” Alan answered, as he took a step closer to the child. “Look away, baby,” he instructed as the child lunged for him. Alan threw a punch. Something he was not used to doing; certainly not toward a child. His fist connected, and he felt the juvenile jaw pop from of the impact. The kid tumbled to the floor again, and Alan kicked out, forcing him to stay on the floor. With a final stamp on the child’s spine, the body fell still. While it still rasped for air, Alan grabbed the back of its shirt and trousers, and heaved the surprisingly heavy body out the door. With the kitchen door locked, he barely had time to turn toward Tracey before the creature was back, clawing at the door like an irate pet.
“Tracey, we need to get upstairs, now,” Alan whispered as he took his wife by the hand.
“Why, what’s going on?” Tracey cried, her mind overflowing with emotions and images that she could not interpret or place.
“I don’t know, but people are all killing one another. Come on! We need to get upstairs. Just don’t look at anything ok?” Alan made her promise, countering his own haste by refusing to move until she promised. “You don’t need to see what I have seen. We just need to get upstairs and wait for the police to arrive. They will sort it out.” The words he spoke seemed to lose their confidence in transition from mind to mouth.
The couple moved swiftly up into the bedroom. Tracey collapsed onto the bed. Though she couldn´t see anything, the agonized screams of terror were impossible to block out. The terror, the pain, it was an orchestrated score of anguish that cut through the walls, through the windows, and pierced the mind without hesitation.
“What’s happening?” Tracey cried, as a high-pitched cry rang out and cut off soon after into a gargle.
“I…I don’t know. People have gone mad,” Alan stuttered as he moved away the window, his face ashen.
Tracey rose from the bed, but Alan laid his hands on her shoulder to stop her. “Don’t,” he spoke, but didn’t look at her. Instead, his gaze looked through her and it gave Tracey the chills.
“Let’s put the news on, honey. Maybe it’s like those riots in London the other year.” Tracey tried to be rational, but the gentle cramp in her stomach – of nausea rather than labor – made it next to impossible.
They sat on the bed together and watched in horror as one by one the channels turned off and a recorded message that advised everybody to keep inside and to remain calm replaced the live feed.
“I don’t understand…” Tracey began, as the last channel they had found with a live feed showed a reporter surrounded by a group of people. They were clawing at her. They had ripped her shirt open exposing her breasts to the camera. She screamed and tried to get away, but she couldn’t move. The feed died just as one of the people bit down on her left breast and removed a large chunk of flesh above the nipple. She disappeared in a shower of blood and a sea of hungry hands. The same error message then came on screen as all of the other channels, and with it, ended all lines of media communication.
“We just need to sit tight. The police or military will be along soon to sort it all out.” Alan slipped an arm around his wife and pulled her close to him.
“What if they don’t?” Tracey pushed. “I mean, we don’t have any food in the cupboard, and nothing to drink. Everything is empty.” They had planned to do all of their shopping today, and had bought only the essentials for dinner the night before.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Alan replied. An undertone of doubt shadowed his words.
They spent the day in their room, only venturing as far as the toilet when required. Alan regularly checked the streets, and was horrified to see that some of the bodies he had seen torn apart earlier were now back on their feet and stumbling through the streets. There was even a creature, for it no longer bore resemblance to a human being, crawling along the road, a few shredded strands of flesh dragging behind it where legs had once sprouted. The image chilled Alan to the core.
The night brought with it a series of chilling sounds, which appeared to move in waves. Growls and shuffling feet, a crash followed by screams. Then silence; a painful silence, punctuated only on occasion by the sound of wet, smacking mouths greedily shoveling flesh down hungry gullets.
Tracey and Alan lay on their bed, the covers pulled around them. They lay arm in arm, their bodies curled as small as they could make them. Neither dared talk…move…even breathing caused their hearts to flurry.
When the sun rose the next morning, Alan once again chanced a look out into the street. There were several cars parked in different haphazard positions. Suitcases and personal belongings lay strewn in the street. One suitcase in particular still had the owner’s arm attached to the handle. The rest of the body was nowhere to be seen. A handful of the dead roamed the street, but not as many as Alan had been expecting. One shuffled toward their house, moving on a meandering path between a series of five cars which seemed to have all tried to leave their drives at the same moment, and succeeding in crashing into each other in various ways as a result.
Alan watched, as Tracey’s peaceful, slumbered breaths continued in the background. A crowd of birds took flight as the creature drew near. An event that infuriated the woman – Alan could see that it had been a woman – and saw her snatch angrily at the air, growing ever more frustrated with each feathered body that escaped her grasp. Finally she caught one, and while its black wings beat against her face, she forced it against her mouth and bit down with an explosion of blood that ran down her chin. She dropped what remained of the carcass, clearly less than impressed with the taste of crow. Her pale face was a bright red from the bird’s blood, which had applied itself to her skin in such a fashion that it created an evil smirk on her face.
Behind him, Alan heard Tracey stir. “What’s going on? Is it all under control?” she asked in a sleepy voice. She half-hoped that it had been nothing more than a bad dream.
“No, it’s not over. However, it looks quiet out there. Most of them seem to have moved on,” Alan told her honestly. He heard the rustle of bed covers, and even with her pregnant stomach slowing her down, Tracey was by the window before Alan had the chance to interject.
“I need to see, Alan. If we are going to survive this, then I need to see it,” she told him when he turned to move between her and the window.
Reluctantly, Alan stepped to one side. He stood, with his eyes closed and waited for what he knew would come. Tracey gave a stifled cry, retched and then buried her head into Alan’s neck, where her silent tears burned them both.
“They’re zombies, aren’t they?” Tracey spoke once her tears no longer stung her eyes. “I was thinking about it last night. What you said, what I heard…there isn’t anything else they could be.”
Alan didn’t answer. There was no need. He simply hugged Tracey tighter and kissed the top of her head.
“We can’t stay, Alan. We need to move somewhere else,” Tracey said as they sat in the kitchen. The child they had first encountered had gone – crawled away; enticed by the sound of a different meal.
“I don’t think we should. You’re pregnant. What if you stayed here and I went out…you know...looking for some supplies. It happened quickly, so maybe there is still plenty of stuff around.” Alan thought of the local corner shop. It was two streets over, and would have everything they could ever need.
“No! I’m not letting you go out there alone, Alan. If something happens and you never come back, I would really be screwed.” Her voice was strict and hard. A tone Alan had not heard before, but somewhere deep in the back of his mind, he found it to be rather appealing.
“I don’t…” Alan began.
“We are safer in numbers. If not you, then me. What if one of those things attacks the house while you are gone?” Tracey interrupted him, and wore an expression on her face that Alan knew well enough to understand that he would not be able to talk her out of it. She was a stubborn woman; at times impossibly so. Her strong will was one of the main things that had attracted him to her.
“Fine, but we will have to be quiet, and prepared. If any of those things comes at us, we will have to fight back…to kill them,” Alan stressed the final word in a last ditch attempt to convince her to stay home.
“I agree. But we should do it quietly. If we make too much noise then maybe it will attract more of them.” Tracey provided a thoughtful answer, which had not been the intended outcome of the conversation.
“There is an axe and some fire tools in the living room. I saw them tucked away in the corner when we were bringing all the boxes in yesterday,” Alan told her, accepting defeat before an argument could brew. They didn’t argue much, but when they did, Tracey won, so Alan understood there was no point. Not just because of tears either. She always posed a good argument, and had debated a lot through school.
Diaries of the Damned Page 18
