A Dead Disappointment

by Birch, S. C.

  Owen twisted the key in the lock and slid open the chain. He grabbed the cold door handle. And after one, long breath out, flung the door open. The bright sunlight and putrid smell assaulted Owen’s senses. But he pushed forwards, and to the dead.

  Owen ran to the horde and started swinging. Their skulls burst the instant his bat connected, shooting out shards of skull and sludge. Rancid death confetti streamed in the air. Owen could hear growls from the corpses and roars from the living.

  The zombies snarled as they chased their lunch. They outnumbered the group immeasurably. But the battle raged. Clotted blood was spilled. Decomposing limbs were severed. Bubbled and scabbed chunks of skin flew in the air.

  Owen felt his ration and thought slip away and be taken over with adrenalin. And he let it happen. He allowed his instincts to take hold of him as he laid waste to the army of corpses. Owen cracked his way through the battle, and he was remarkable. He and his comrades killed with tremendous skill. But the battle was intense and fast. Danger was always present. None could take a break for even a moment.

  The zombies from the back of the house started making their way forwards. Lucy was so consumed in her present kill she was unaware of the approaching teeth. She felt her shoulders being grabbed and in an instant was yanked with such a force she fell back, taking her zombie assailant with her. Lucy wrestled free, twisted round and slammed her club into the zombie’s face. She screamed with wild rage. Then scrambled to her feet and moved to the next target.

  Daniel charged through the undead. His movements were erratic. Chaotic. He was swinging at everything he could reach to kill.

  “Owen!” he screamed.

  Owen turned to Daniel and came face-to-face with a zombie and its snapped open jaw. Owen swore loudly and kicked the zombie. As it tumbled to the ground, Daniel swung hard and the beast twitched as death claimed it.

  Owen roared and moved on to the next fucker.

  Jack was again grabbed by a crawler. It found Jack’s ankle and pulled itself forwards for the kill.

  “Not this time, bitch!”

  Jack doubled over, drove his wrench inside the soft skull, and dislodged it.

  He flinched and swore as a golf club swung inches from his face. Jack twisted and saw Grace had murdered a zombie who was less than a foot away from himself. Jack smiled at Grace, then went back to killing.

  Being short has its advantages, and using the music as a metronome, Emily kept a fast and steady pace, slipping through the zombies. She slashed and stabbed wildly. Pouncing up to reach skulls.

  She felt herself slammed into her car. Her wrist crunched and the wing mirror smashed. She felt a stabbing in her arm, then jerked away from the oncoming bite. The zombie backed away a few steps. It cracked its chest back and screamed. Then dove forwards for his second attempt. Emily held up the knife and drove it into its face.

  Cameron had come running when the zombie screamed. It was unlike anything else he had heard yet. He saw a zombie standing over Emily, then slip down to the ground, motionless.

  “You okay?”

  Emily nodded.

  “Good!” he said, then set about killing again. He was quick and agile. Weaving throughout the horde like a professional and killed with an almost unhealthy efficiency.

  The two sprinted together to the back of the house after noticing the front garden and driveway were nearly clear.

  Like they were entwined in a death dance Cameron and Emily moved through the last of them. Working together to slay. And as their friends reached the back, Cameron dealt the final kill.

  “Goddamn, we’re good!” Emily yelled and slapped Cameron’s hand in a high-five.

  “Are they all dead?” shouted Grace. She didn’t really mean to shout, but her whole body was overdosed on adrenalin. She couldn’t help it.

  “Hell fucking yes!” shouted Emily, again for the same reason as Grace.

  “Was anyone bitten?” shouted Cameron for the same reason as the two girls. In fact, everyone shouted stupidly loud until very late that night, so for the rest of Day Six, please assume that anytime someone talks it’s in an unnecessarily loud level.

  With Cameron’s question they all checked themselves over before saying a collective: “No.” And after they did, they all ran into each other hugging and cheering.

  “Oh my God, we did it! We actually did it!” said (shouted) Daniel.

  “Right, everyone, we still need to find out how they were getting in. Let’s have a look round.” said Owen.

  Covered in corpse juice, they all walked along the edge of the garden and around the house, looking for something that could be the cause of the undead horde. And the longer it took for them to find something, the more Owen’s stomach sank and contracted. He hoped, almost begged, that the zombies weren’t victims of his house’s previous owners. But Daniel found an old wooden gate on the back wall of the garden. The gate’s lock had rusted, and the ground had been disturbed there. Owen forced himself to believe that the zombies had shuffled through from the outside world.

  Owen and Daniel went back inside, pushed a shelf away from the large double doors in the foyer and together they carried it into the garden to bock the gate. Then everyone headed inside.

  “I can’t believe we did that.” Lucy said and peeled off her slime covered jacket.

  “Woo! Dude, I am still pumped!” Jack said as he too started to de-robe. “My adrenaline is spiking like fucking crazy.”

  Emily dumped her jacked on the floor and started unbuttoning her trousers, “Same!” she said, “My hands are still shaking and everything.”

  “Oh, no, Emily.” Grace ran to her and grabbed her arm. It was bleeding.

  “Ah!” she said. “When’d that happen?”

  “Jesus, Em,” Jack said, “There’s blood literally pouring out your arm! Get into the dining room! Now!”

  Jack grabbed Emily by the elbow and dragged her away.

  ***

  Owen stripped in the downstairs bathroom and jumped in the shower. The warm water trickled down his skin. After he had scrubbed his entire body, he just stood there for a while. Letting his heart slow down. He placed his hands on the tiled wall to stop them shaking. But the shakes travelled to his legs.

  After he turned off the shower and wrapped a towel around his stomach, he left his defiled clothes on the floor and walked to his room where he had locked Mortimer in. He got dressed and took Mortimer into the back garden. Thankfully most of the corpses were in the front. Owen allowed Mortimer to run around.

  He sat on the patio bench and placed a cigarette between his lips. His hands trembled. He couldn’t get the stupid thing lit.

  Owen grunted in anger and launched the lighter across the garden.

  “Still feeling it?” Grace asked.

  Owen nodded, then looked at his hands, “Yeah, just still a bit wired, you know?

  Grace nodded and sat beside him, “I do.” She lit a cigarette and handed it to Owen.

  “Thanks.”

  “Take as long as you need. When you’re ready everyone is in the library waiting for you.”

  “Cool.” Owen took a long drag of the cigarette, “Would you mind staying here with me for a bit?”

  “Of course.”

  Owen smiled and held grace close. He felt her warmth soothe him, like a therapy puppy. He sat, watching his stupid dog crawl around in the garden, sniffing the corpses, and feeling his breath slow down. But after not long the stench became too much. Owen flicked the cigarette away and stood up. He took Grace’s hand, lifting her to her feet and whistled at Mortimer to follow. The three ascended the stairs and as they reached the top, Owen heard shouting, and distinctly heard Jack say:

  “From this day henceforth, I dub this room the Fort Room!”

  When Owen opened the door he said, “Fort Room sounds good to me.” and was greeted with cheers.

  “Get your uncomfortably gorgeous body in here and celebrate!” Jack said.

  “Hey!” Daniel said, slightly hurt he h
ad never received that compliment before.

  “We’re celebrating?” Owen asked.

  “Fuck yes. We just killed a horde of zombies! Zombies, Owen! Actual fucking zombies! That’s been our life’s ambition since we were ten! Here.” Jack pushed his arm up to Owen with a glass in hand, “Poured you a whisky. Sit down and take it, bitch!”

  Owen walked over to the mattress and collapsed on it before he took his drink, “Well, guys. Here’s to…what? Us?”

  “That sounds a bit weak. How about…to not being dead?” asked Emily after she stopped devouring her bottom lip.

  “Nah, that’s even worse.” said Jack, “What about, right, being totally fucking awesome with an immense backing track?”

  Daniel burst out laughing because he thought that their backing track in no way counted as being immense, “Cheers!” he said, but his attempt at sarcasm was lost on the other six.

  They all took a long drink. And it was a good whisky. It stung their throats as they downed it and everyone apart from Owen and Jack shuddered.

  “One more toast?” asked Grace, “To Daniel for coming up with the plan.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” said Cameron with a nod.

  “Yeah, mate. Cheers.” Jack said.

  Daniel smiled a big toothy grin and beamed at his friends. “Awww, you guys!” he said. “You’re the best.”

  “Oh, Daniel,” Lucy said, “You are fucking endearing.”

  “Soooo, video?” Jack asked.

  “Christ, do you ever take a break from that?” asked Owen.

  Jack looked at Owen, his face screwed in disgust as though he had just heard the most stupid thing in his life, “No.”

  Owen picked up a pillow and threw it at Jack, “Fuck off.” he shouted.

  Jack was thrown back a little and held up his drink so he wouldn’t spill it.

  “I want to.” said Grace over the pillow throwing, “Last one…the last one didn’t really turn out too well. And now we’re all in good spirits. I think it would be nice.”

  Jack’s already stupid looking grin grew even larger and now he looked moronic.

  “I’m up for it.” said Lucy.

  Daniel shot his arm in the air, “So am I.”

  Jack bolted forwards to the camera on the box of comics, “More than half agreed! I’m happy with that…” he slapped the laptop’s keyboard then clicked the camera into life, pushed himself along the carpet and back into the book fort.

  “Hello, everyone! Us again! So, today we decided to suit up and head outside. Have any of you done that yet? I don’t recommend it. Like, seriously, don’t do it if you can avoid it. It was horrible. When we got back in my sister’s arm was covered in blood. She’s alright, though.” Jack flapped his arm at Emily and she waved her bandaged arm vibrantly in return, “But yeah, that wasn’t the most brilliant moment from the zedpocs so far. But we really needed to go out there. It was getting that way that we weren’t safe. And now we are! Waaay!” Jack raised his glass to everyone and they all drank, “So, yeah, that’s about it from us, I guess. Don’t really think there’s anything else to say so -”

  Cameron cut in, “What? Nothing else to say?”

  “Nothing I can think of.” said Jack.

  Cameron rolled his eyes. “If you need to go out, don’t just randomly do it. We’re really lucky, all things considered. And yeah, we came up with a solid plan for heading out there. Well that was mostly Daniel, actually. But, and I know it’s simple, but never go anywhere without something you can potentially kill a zombie with. I know.” Cameron squirmed around on the ground with his legs folded and managed to slide a hand into his pocket, “It really is obvious. But honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if people just left their house without anything to defend themselves with.”

  Jack nodded, “Yeah, and what we did was wear bulky clothes. Like, mostly leather and stuff so that if they did get a bite on us it didn’t actually affect us.”

  “I can vouch for that. I was nearly bit a few times but they didn’t get their teeth through my leathers, so I’m still uninfected.” said Owen with a smile and a sip of his drink.

  Jack spun away from Owen and to the camera, “True story.” he said then spun back to his friends.

  “Oh!” shouted Emily as she flapped her hands in the air, “What we found that worked amazing was, like, really loud and awesome music. They all, like, wandered over to the living room ‘cos that’s where the music was coming from and they didn’t even notice us when we left the house! Helped so much!”

  “Yes. And always stay in a group. I think we would have died if we’d split up, so stay close and together.” chimed in Lucy.

  “Anyone got anything else? I can’t think of anything we haven’t covered.” asked Jack

  “Well, yeah, just one last thing.” Cameron shuddered all over, “They seem to rot more in the rain. It’s ehh, it’s pretty disgusting.”

  “Oxymoron!” Emily shouted.

  “Do you know,” Daniel said, ignoring Emily, “I saw them walking in circles when it was raining. Only time I ever saw it. It was like they were confused.”

  “Now you mention it actually, I seen the same thing.” said Lucy.

  Jack took a drink and wiped the back of his hand across his chin and stubble, “Owen mate, you got sprinklers?”

  “Yep.” then Owen’s eyes widened, “I have sprinklers! Oh my God, they might be the best defence ever!” he took a celebratory drink.

  “Oh. My. God! Death by sprinklers! Oh, and we could get, like, a hose to them as well. That would be so much fun!” said Emily as she clapped her hands at the thought.

  Daniel took a drink. “Or, we could steal a fire truck! We would never lose if we had one of those!”

  Everyone looked at Daniel.

  “That’s genius! I am so stealing the next fire truck we find!” squeaked Owen. Firefighter was his second choice of profession.

  Lucy burst out laughing and had to cover her mouth with her hand as she snorted. It caused everyone else to double up and share in a fit of giggles. They’d had nothing to eat for the best part of five days and the whisky went straight to their heads.

  “Then that’s what we’re doing, I guess. Turning on sprinklers and,” Jack let a laugh escape him as he tried his damnedest to suppress them, “we’re going to steal a fucking fire truck! I love you lot. If you guys at home do the same, for the love of all that is left alive in this world you have to show me. Till next time!”

  Day Seven

  Then it was the seventh day of the End of Days. It has been said by many, and is widely agreed, that the seventh day of anything can determine a substantial amount. For example, if a new-born baby remains nameless on the seventh day of its life, its parents will forever regret whichever name they eventually choose. Drinking milk seven days past its expiry date will turn you into a human volcano. If that embarrassing itch persists after day seven, then no over the counter cream is going to work. If you decide seven days after Christmas that Spot, the once adorable puppy present, is no longer right for you, then you are an awful person. If you find yourself in the middle of the apocalypse and survive through till the end of Day Seven, well, depending on how it has treated you, you have a considerable idea of how you will survive and endure the rest of it.