“Grab them, but let’s try not to kill anybody while getting the groceries, okay?” She smiled at him and her face lit up. Alan returned the smile and felt the oppressive nature of the room begin to lift. They were in a bad situation, there could be no denying, but they were together, and that was the main thing.
They grabbed the weapons, and donned as many layers of clothes as they could force on. The basis of their logic being that the more layers, the more chance they had to surviving should a zombie chomp down on them.
With themselves wrapped up and a promise of no tears, Alan cracked open the front door and peered into the street. It was relatively empty. Alan saw the woman who had eaten the crow wandering in the distance. She had somehow turned around and found herself stuck in the maze of cars. Something held her attention, for her head darted from side to side. Alan hoped it was another bird, or even a cat, rather than another human being.
“Ok, come on. Try to be as quiet as possible,” Alan whispered before he opened the door and they walked out into the street.
The silence was the first thing they both felt. The absence of sound, of life, had become something physical. There was no traffic, no birds chirping – nothing. All background noise was removed. The world was set on mute. Every footstep rang out and echoed through the streets. Both Alan and Tracey found themselves holding their breath until their lungs burned in an attempt to make as little sound as was possible. The row of cars parked along the street gave them enough cover, as the three zombies they could see wandered down the road, as if using the white stripes that dissected it as a navigation point. It was also a stark realization for them, as under normal circumstances, the street would have been empty, with the cars sitting stationary on the motorway heading in to work.
The only break was a space where two cars had collided. From the debris that lay in the street, the impact had been at a higher speed than the larger accident.
They reached it and paused behind a tall van giving them enough cover to stand upright and assess their options.
“Wait here,” Alan whispered as he poked his head around the front of the van. They had passed the first couple of zombies, and the ones they saw shuffling back and forth in the distance were far enough away to discount them as a direct threat for a moment.
“If we move quickly, we should be fine. I’ll move first. Then wave you across once the coast is clear. No arguments,” he added when he saw Tracey open her mouth to speak. She closed it again and offered no further resistance.
Alan moved quickly, and kept himself as low to the ground as possible. He stopped in the mid-point to regroup. The car that had been the faster moving source of the impact had flipped onto its roof and spun across the tarmac. It ran close to parallel with the road. Alan paused, took a deep breath and went to move, but couldn’t. Something held him in place. The growl that sounded made him gasp. The tug on his leg knocked him off balance and he fell to the ground. Twisting, he kicked out in an instinctive reaction. The arm that held him broke, for it was stuck between his foot and the small gap in the twisted metal frame that had one been the rear door. The face that peered out at him was only half-visible. The rest was a meaty mess, peppered with glass and small shards of metal. The seatbelt still held the creature – another child – in place, and saved Alan’s life. The broken arm reached limply, the bone jutting through the skin, yet not quick enough to penetrate the surface. Tracey had moved from cover the moment she head Alan’s gasp, and had given a scream of her own when she saw what clung to his foot. She had stifled herself as soon as possible, but it was too late. Attention had been garnered. The three zombies they had crept past all turned and headed their way. Alan was on his feet quickly, but the first one was too close for them to safely flee, for it would follow them, and lead others to their door.
They stopped, and Alan turned, his axe raised high. Tracey stood by his side and pushed his arm away when he tried to move her to safety.
The zombie drew closer, and Alan began to tremble. The creature stared at him, and then, one-step further, its gaze was lost. Diverted to Tracey, its dead eyes gave the impression of focus, the head tiled down. It stared at her swollen belly. The zombie stopped its advance and stared at the baby bump. It gave a growl, a strange semi-muted growl, and raised its arms, as if in gesticulation. Alan wasted no time; he raised the axe above his head and swung. His eyes closed at the last moment and he missed the target. The blade buried itself deep in the zombie’s shoulder. It gave a loud roar and spun back to face Alan. The movement caused the weapon to tear free. Alan waited. The zombie took another step, and that was when Alan swung the axe once more. The blade split the skull, and formed a crack, which ran down the bridge of the nose and into the upper lip. The zombie gave a series of short, sharp jerks and fell to the ground. Alan stared at it, with a mixture of emotions and sensations swirling inside his mind and gut. His legs buckled and he vomited what was left of the meal from the night before over the second-time dead torso.
“Did you see that…it looked at the ba…I mean…it stopped,” Tracey stuttered, unsure as to the significance of the event. There was no time for further conversation, however. The two remaining zombies and the group that had been in the distance were all on their way, having heard the screams and the struggle.
“We need to move!” Alan fought for his breath as he scrambled back to his feet, taking Tracey by the hand and pulling her along the street. “Down here,” Alan called as they reached an alleyway. He pulled Tracey along, although there was no need. Her survival instinct told her where they needed to go before Alan gave it a voice.
They ran down the alleyway and then darted into the first garden they came to with a gate and fence that offered them a place to hide. They closed the gate and slipped down to the ground, their back against it. Together, with their hands interlocked they sat, and waited.
It didn’t take long for the first footsteps to shuffle past the gate. Tracey gave a squeak and Alan pressed his hand over her mouth. His finger to his lips, he bade her be quiet. Tracey nodded, tears filling her eyes.
They remained where they were for fifteen minutes after the footsteps had ceased. It was just long enough for Tracey to calm herself, and for Alan to think of a way to tell her that something was watching them from the house's dark interior.
The face that gazed at them from the window was eyeing them with a nervous curiosity, a trepidation that Alan recognized as being dangerous. With no interest in a protracted standoff, Alan made his move. He got to his feet, walked toward the house, his hand open, and out to one side. “Let us in,” he asked in a whisper. He knew they heard him, for the figure twitched at the sound of his voice. “Please, my wife is pregnant.” Alan’s voice increased a little, and he motioned to Tracey. The figure in the window was unmoved, and after a few moments the old man, for Alan could see him clearer as the inched his way closer to the house, reached out and snapped the blinds closed.
“Come on,” Alan grunted under his breath. “We need to keep moving. The shop isn’t far away. If we can get inside we will have supplies and a chance to rest,” Alan began, pushing the old man out of his mind.
“Who was in there? Why won’t they let us in?” Tracey asked her voice little more than a whisper.
“They’re scared.” Alan gave her the simple answer as he opened the gate and looked down the alley. The coast was clear. “Come on; let’s get moving before they come back.” He put his arm around Tracey and they left the garden. Alan made sure he closed the gate properly before they set off.
The sky was grey and overcast. The cold air still found a way to seep through their multiple layers of clothing and freeze them to the core. It was the steam from a bulk exhalation that alerted them to the group hiding behind the car on the other side of the street. There was something about the way they hid that made Alan feel uneasy. He increased his pace and alertness. It was only when they got level with the car, and the road branched off to the left, that they saw the reason for the group's
hiding place.
A crowd of seven zombies stood gathered around the front of the store. A set of brutally dissected remains lay scattered around the pavement, and blood smeared the windows.
“Get back,” Alan whispered hurriedly when he saw the group. He and Tracey ducked back around the corner, and down beside a parked car. Alan heard the hushed whispers of the group opposite them. He wondered what they were planning, and did not have to wait long to see it for himself.
A tin can flew into the air and clattered on the ground by Alan’s feet. The clattering noise was like a mortar blast.
“What are you doing?” Alan stood and growled across the road.
“Surviving man, no hard feelings,” a man in his early twenties answered. He slammed his hand down on the roof of the car, and one of his unseen friends launched a new attention-seeking missile across the road.
The sound of shattering glass was unmistakable, as too was the sound of approaching zombies.
“What…why did they throw that at us?” Tracey asked as the shards of shattered glass spread around them.
“They want to get to the shop too. They want to use us as bait,” Alan told her directly. There was no time for niceties.
“Why would they do that? We are all in this together.” Tracey fought back the tears.
“I think things are breaking down faster than expected. They have their own group and want to survive at all costs,” Alan answered. There was a tin can and small piece of wood by his feet. He could have risen and thrown it at the group, but something stopped him. It wasn’t right to condemn them to death.
“We need to move back, find another way,” Alan whispered, but Tracey stood firm. The zombies drew ever closer.
“No. We need to get to that shop, Alan. We have as much right as they do. We can work together. We just need to show them we aren’t a threat.”
The first zombie shuffled around the corner, and was immediately on the same side of the road as Alan and Tracey. Retreat was no longer an option. Alan adjusted his grip on the axe, which was covered with semi-congealed brain clumps.
“We’ll never be able to take them all, Tracey. Come on, we need to move,” Alan implored, but Tracey didn’t listen. She stared at the approaching zombie.
It was a woman, or at least had been. Her body was filthy, her skin pale. Dark black rings circled her eyes and blood stained her face. Her clothes were ripped and torn. Her left shoulder hung at a strange angle to the rest of her body. There was no visible sign of a bite wound, or any injury. Tracey thought of the news reports; how people with the flu had started dying. The rest fell into place relatively quickly. Then, a mad notion crept into her mind. She didn’t have time to discuss it with Alan. She wouldn’t have in any case. She knew it was madness…suicidal even. Most importantly, she knew Alan would try to stop her.
Tracey rose to her feet, quickly crossing behind the car and into the middle of the street. She said nothing, but stood still, and watched as the zombie’s attention snapped her way.
“Hey! Hey you, crazy chick! Get the fuck down! Run away! Those things will kill you,” the now panicked voice of the young man that had launched the bottle at them spoke up. He turned and rose into a crouch, only to be pulled back down by his friends.
“Tracey!” Alan shouted, his position forgotten. He sprang to his feet and ran to his wife, but she hushed him with a raised hand and forced him to stand behind her.
The approaching zombie took several steps closer to Tracey, and then paused. The others had joined, and stopped in the same position a few meters away from Alan and Tracey. They all stared at Tracey’s swollen belly. It held them transfixed.
A small, squeaky noise came from behind the car, as one of the women in their opposing group tried to stifle their cries. Tracey never broke her gaze on the zombies, but Alan chanced a glance and saw that they had all turned around to stare at the unfolding scene.
The sound of the suppressed cry caught the attention of the group, who swiveled like a marching platoon and descended upon the car, leaving Tracey and Alan behind them. The group did not stand a chance once the zombies heard them. In a flurry of kicks and screams, the massacre began. Blood sprayed into their air like the release of a series of hell geysers, and rained down onto the car. The sound of ripping flesh and hungry growls filled the street. The agonized cries of the group made Tracey vomit. It was a sound that she found indescribable. Not just for the pain that was expressed in that person’s final cry, but because of the simplistic, crisp sound with which the skin tore apart; a fragility that had never occurred to her before that moment.
“Tracey, we need to run, now!” Alan grabbed his wife by the hand and together they sprinted, as best as their respective physiques would allow, to the shop. The door opened as they drew near, and a Pakistani man appeared.
“Hurry,” he called to them.
Alan reached the shop half a step ahead of Tracey, but stopped, waiting for her to cross the threshold ahead of him.
It was dark in the shop, and Alan soon saw why. The quantity of shed blood, both inside and out, staggered his mind.
“Quick, get away from the door. Please, sit. Sit, here.” The owner of the store scurried around in the dim light and came back with an old, beat-up computer chair which he insisted Tracey sit on. She didn’t argue.
Alan stood, staring at his wife, a mixture of anger and despair sloshed through his mind. “You could have been killed.” He spoke after a time, only realizing once he had finished how obvious the statement actually was.
“I remembered the way the boy looked at me, and then the other zombie, the one you killed. They all seemed to stop when they saw I was pregnant. It was the only way…but oh god, those people.” Tracey clapped her hands over her mouth as a tremor worked its way through her body. Suddenly the sound of their raw flesh being consumed by the undead echoed in her ears, and there was nothing she could do to silence it.
“They were trying to get us killed. You didn’t mean for that to happen.” Alan wrapped his arm around his weeping wife and pulled her close to him. As he held her, he looked over at the store owner, and mouthed his thanks.
“Those bitches tried to break in, to steal my stuff. They’ve been watching me for hours now. I won’t miss them,” he spoke with a second-generation accent.
“Thank you for letting us inside. We appreciate it,” Alan answered as Tracey pushed herself away from his embrace and sat under her own power. The tears had subsided, but she knew they would not be the last.
The store was deserted, save for the bloody puddles, which were all that remained of several customers who had been doing their shopping at the time of the outbreak.
“Where are the bodies?” Tracey asked. Alan hadn’t even seen the way she sat staring at the blood. Her face was pale, and it shocked him.
“You need to eat. Please, do you have anything? I don’t have any money with me,” Alan began, but the shopkeeper waved his hands.
“Please, take anything you need. My shop is closed. Take all you need.” He turned away from them and moved to stand by the door. He had a shotgun leaning against the wall where he stood. Alan assumed it was loaded, given the open box of shells on the counter top.
Alan had frequented the shop on many occasions, and knew his way around the shelves. He quickly grabbed a sandwich for his wife and a Cornish pasty for himself, as well as two bags of crisps and some bottled water.
“Here, eat this. You’ll feel better,” he said as he handed the food to Tracey. She took it without comment and began to eat.
Alan opened his own and walked over to the door to stand beside the owner. “How many of them are out there?” he asked, his voice a forced whisper. The group that had attacked the other party had moved on. Their feeding was over and the momentum had been set on course.
“Three new ones. No idea where they came from. I don’t recognize them,” the man answered without breaking his watchful gaze.
“It’s the flu. People started dying and c
ame back as…well, zombies,” Alan explained, unsure if he was talking sense, or boring the man with information he already knew.
“The world is ending. They predicted it would.” The man wore a pendant around his neck, which he clasped in one fist. Every so often, he would close his eyes and mumbled to himself, as if in silent prayer.
Alan stood in silence. The weight of the man’s words fell heavy on his ears.
“What’s the plan now?” Tracey asked when Alan had rejoined her. She had finished her sandwich and was munching her way through the second bag of crisps. The color had already begun to return to her cheeks.
“First, you are going to rest. Don’t forget: you’re pregnant. We need to take things slow, no matter what is happening out there.” Alan looked around, surveying the store. There was a fire exit in the rear right corner, and a large cooler / freezer unit in the center of the rear wall. “We seem to be secure here. As long as we keep quiet, I don’t see why we can’t just wait it out.” Alan continued. “The army or somebody will come along looking for survivors. They will have to,” he added, as if in an attempt to convince himself.
“I hope so,” Tracey answered, rising from the stool. “That thing is more uncomfortable than standing,” she whispered.
As the time began to tick by, the silence in the shop began to grow oppressive. Their host never moved from his post by the door. Not even to shift his weight. He seemed uninterested in their company, yet had seemed rather insistent that they stay. Something about it didn’t sit right with Alan. He mulled it over repeatedly in his mind, trying to find the cypher that hung in before his nose, yet somehow eluded him.
He moved away from Tracey and walked back to shopkeeper. “My name’s Alan,” he offered his hand to the man, who refused to acknowledge the offered appendage, but gave his name in response. “Vijay…Vijay Patel.”
“Thank you for saving us,” Alan tried to get a conversation going with Vijay, while behind him, Tracey stood studying a pool of blood, and wondering where the smeared trail led.
Diaries of the Damned Page 19
