A Dead Disappointment

by Birch, S. C.

  “Jack? Why did Lucy say bite?” Owen asked. He stood above them both, looking at the wound.

  “Not now!” Jack spat as he both wrestled with his sister and tried to rip off the lid of an antibacterial solution in a bottle.

  “If she was bit -” started Owen.

  “Fuck off, Owen!” Emily barked before her brother had a chance, “I’m not gonna turn!”

  “Help me!” Jack begged, looking at Owen. The desperation he felt was worn heavily on his face.

  Grace slid herself down beside the pair and pressed all her weight onto Emily’s legs.

  “Christ.” whimpered Owen.

  “She’s not going to turn.” Jack said and poured the liquid on his sister.

  Emily whimpered in pain. The clear solution stung and sizzled her skin and the pain, coupled with the rather major blood loss, sapped the tiny shred of energy she had left.

  Owen looked down at his dear friend. He shook his head as tears found him, “Emily.” he croaked.

  “Mate! Fucking stop it, alright. She’s not going to turn.” Jack ripped open a dressing with his teeth then held it at the wound.

  “We need to kill her.” said Handlebar Moustache as he walked towards them.

  Jack glared up at the man. “You fucki-”

  “If you even think about it,” said Lucy from inside the car, “you will not see the end of this day.”

  “But look at her!” Handlebar Moustache pleaded. “She’s already dead!”

  Owen pushed his forearm against Handlebar Moustache’s throat and slammed him into the car. “Try it.”

  Daniel brought up his gun and pointed it at the man.

  Handlebar Moustache wheezed, looking between the two. He stayed silent.

  Emily was bandaged up and Jack lifted her into the car beside Cameron.

  “She’s like me. You know, immune or whatever it is.” Jack said as he started picking up the medical supplies.

  “You sure about that?” asked Owen who was still pressing down on Handlebar Moustache.

  “Well he wouldn’t fucking say it if he wasn’t!” shouted Emily with the last of her strength.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you!” roared Handlebar Moustache, “You’ll end up killing yourselves.”

  Owen pulled away and glared at the ungrateful wretch, “Good. Get the fuck away from us.” he stood back but kept his shoulders squared towards the fucker who would even think about killing his friend.

  Handlebar Moustache walked away after glaring at the group long and hard.

  “Jack, I do believe you. I do,” said Daniel, his gun still following the man as he left, “but how do you know?”

  “Because they bit me, too.” Jack said quietly, it was all he could do to stop himself screaming, “And when they bit us, they both ended up on the ground practically dying.”

  “It’s true.” said Lucy from the car while still cleaning up Cameron, “And the rest of them ran right past the two of them and went straight for us instead.”

  And that was more than enough for Owen. He shook his head and sighed with relief as he brought Jack in for a hug.

  It was also enough for Blondie who had stayed hidden inside the Impala weighing up his options with his gun in hand up till that point.

  Lucy cleared up as much of the blood as she could from Cameron. He had slices all along his back, chest and arms, a gash in the back of his head and his left shoulder, and a split running from his jaw, around the side of his neck and under his ear. Lucy did what she could to bandage him up and disinfect his wounds while Emily passed out.

  ***

  The sun was in its height by the time they reached home. It was as they had left it. The sprinklers had turned the garden into a swamp. But a safe one.

  Jack carried his sister up to the Fort Room and laid her out on the bed while Owen and Daniel did the same for Cameron.

  Mortimer curled up in a ball beside the two sleeping bodies. He had had a great time while everyone was away. The house was wrecked and stank. He had ripped open the dog food bags and ate himself sick (multiple times). So, straight away, and to keep himself distracted from his physical pain, Owen cleaned up.

  Lucy took Maeve inside and to the dining room.

  Daniel stayed outside and patrolled the house. He also called home and made sure everyone was okay.

  Jack was sitting on the floor of the Fort Room leaning against a wall, looking at his own bite. His skin had been ripped and was covered in blood. Jack gave the non-shredded part of his skin a little poke and the puckered skin made a horrid squelching noise, so he stopped. Instead Jack poured some of that thin, yellow liquid given to Emily from their mother onto his hand and wrapped a bandage around it. The pain persisted. Bubbling under the dressings. But he forgot about it when Grace appeared and cuddled into him.

  Jack kissed her head and as he pulled away he said, “We fucking made it home.”

  Grace smiled up at Jack. She looked so goddamned tired. But that wasn’t going to stop her. She pulled herself up and kissed Jack hard. The two fell to the floor, and that fur coat drowned them both.

  Owen, once he was finished his hour-long clean up, found the two girls in his dining room. They went quiet. Maeve looked away from Owen and to Lucy.

  “You two okay?” he asked.

  “Err, yes.” replied Lucy. She was sprawled along the dining table, holding her head up while her elbows took the weight.

  Owen folded his arms and leaned into the wall, “Why do I think that’s a lie?”

  “I, eh, I have something to ask.” said Maeve.

  Owen sighed hard as he walked into the room and sat down beside the two, “Please just wait till Em and Cam wake up and then I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

  “Actually, I don’t have…” but Maeve trailed off. She was in a house filled with complete strangers, and she had nowhere to go. Everyone had miraculously escaped death, someone was possibly about to turn into one of those things, and every person she looked at was covered in blood. Including herself.

  “I told Maeve she can stay with us. Is that okay?” asked Lucy on her behalf.

  “Of course!” Owen spluttered, “Fucking hell, that’s not the kind of thing you need to ask. If you want to stay, then stay.”

  Maeve bounced from her seat and wrapped her arms around Owen’s neck, “Thank you.”

  “That’s okay. Welcome to the gang.” Owen said, wincing a little. As Maeve pulled away, and his pain dulled down, he asked, “So what do we do next?”

  Lucy rolled her eyes, “Why do we always either ask what’s going on or what’s next? Nobody ever comes up with a plan and sticks with it.”

  He laughed. “That’s true, actually.”

  “Owen?” asked Lucy with a warm but tired smile, “Call your parents. Make sure they’re okay. And then we fucking relish in the fact that we’re finally home.”

  Day Twenty

  On the twentieth day of the end of days, Cameron and Emily had still not woken up. Everyone who was awake that morning had discovered that their families were still intact. A missing cousin here and a dead uncle there. But not the family members you ever really care about. Not enough to break down over at least. Even Cameron’s family were still alive; Daniel had made that phone call on his behalf. Mortimer had decided that his new best friend was Maeve and never left her side for an instant. Those two sat in the Fort Room, keeping each other company. Blondie also sat in the Fort Room, trying to work out if he was safer with the mad lot, or on his own.

  Meanwhile, Lucy had a horrible task to undertake.

  “Just…get this over and done with.” Owen said as he hung his head back. The slats of his wooden chair dug into his bare back and Owen tried his utmost to concentrate on that pain than the one about to come.

  Lucy hovered over his arm with a knife in one hand, tweezers in the other, and an array of plasters, bandages, a basin of boiling water, a tube of superglue, towels, and hydrogen peroxide on the dining room table, “Why did I get thi
s job?” she moaned to herself.

  “Because,” said Owen, “you’re the only one with medical training.”

  “I was trying to be a dentist! That in no way counts!”

  “Yeah, but you learnt how to do stitches.”

  “On gums!” Lucy said.

  “I believe in you, Lucy.” Owen said, teasing, “Just dig deep, you can do this, girl.”

  “Jeez. Thanks.” Lucy said, finding a smile touch her lips.

  Lucy took a deep breath then pushed the tweezers into the hole just under his shoulder.

  Owen grunted and shook his head before taking a drink from the vodka in his hand.

  “Stop moving!” Lucy barked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Lucy slid the tweezers forwards until she felt them grind against something solid.

  “Yep.” said Owen, “That’s the fucker.”

  “Okay, don’t move.” she slid the knife forwards to widen the hole.

  Owen gritted his teeth and grunted. Who could blame him?

  Lucy felt the tweezers widen a little. She pushed them together and slowly slid out the bullet. She dropped it in Owen’s palm, placed her little bloody weapons in the basin on the table (which also had their real weapons upon it), and picked up the peroxide which she poured on the long tear. Once Owen had stopped squirming and the solution had stopped bubbling, Lucy picked up the already threaded needle and pinched in his arm.

  “You doing okay?” Lucy asked as he kept the tear pressed together.

  “Fabulous.”

  Lucy smiled and rolled her eyes at his response before sliding the needle into his skin.

  Owen (after just enduring something rather excruciating found the stitches Lucy was making to be almost painless) turned the bloody bullet around in his fingers, “Yeah, I’m totally getting this put on a chain or something.”

  Lucy sighed and continued sewing Owen up, “Because that’s only incredibly morbid.”

  “Lucy,” said Owen still admiring the bullet, “I was shot at by a fucking helicopter. How can you not understand why I would want a reminder of just how baller I am around my neck?” he was of course teasing, but he was going to keep this bullet. Possibly frame it. Hang it above the fireplace, maybe.

  “You are such a creep.”

  The stitches didn’t look great. Lucy had maybe overdone it a little, so before Owen could notice, she cleaned him up, put a dressing pad on, and slapped on far more masking tape than was necessary. Lucy tidied their medical supplies, putting them in the boxes they had allocated before heading towards the hall.

  “Where you going?” asked Owen who had finally looked away from his bullet.

  “I’m off to make food. Want there to be something for those two to eat when they wake up.”

  “I’ll help.”

  And, miraculously, it was at that exact moment that Cameron did wake up. Nobody noticed at first. And in truth, Cameron didn’t really notice either. He was lying on a comfortable mattress, trying to adjust his eyes to the light flooding in. And by god how he was sore. It was like nothing he had experienced before. Each slow beat of his heart pumped pain through his veins. Rhythmic and thumping. Cameron tried to move his arm to the source of most of the pain - his head - but his body weighed him down. Summoning up all his strength, Cameron dragged his arm up and touched the source of the pain. He could feel little knots running along his scalp. Lucy had done that. That morning Owen, Lucy, and Daniel headed out to collect some more food, painkillers, antibiotics, bandages, and duct tape (because, as Owen rightly said, you can never have too much duct tape during an apocalypse). And Lucy, rather ingeniously, picked up a sewing kit. Cameron winced as he touched his head and felt pain shoot from the side of his neck. So again, he dragged his arm (how none of the others in the room noticed he was moving is beyond anyone’s knowledge) around his chest and to the source of the second pain. Cameron felt a bandage around his neck and a dressing pad on his jaw.

  This little burst of energy exhausted Cameron and he slumped his arm down to the mattress. Instead, he decided to work out just where in the hell he was and what had happened. He couldn’t remember it all well. Just bits and pieces. He remembered shooting things. And he remembered seeing Daniel, Grace, and Owen for a moment, and he remembered driving alone. That was it. So, time to work out where he was. Cameron looked around. He could see a bright white ceiling and below it, bare, white walls. His gaze travelled downwards. Oh, he thought, that looks familiar. It was the book fort Emily had made for him. Then two thoughts flashed through his head: I’m back home and Emily. Then he remembered something else. She had been bitten. And the last thing Cameron could remember was watching her fall and him not being there.

  In a fit of panic, Cameron jerked his head and looked around for her. And there Emily was, sleeping. And pale. And motionless. And bleeding.

  “Em?” he croaked.

  “Fuck, Cam? You up?” asked Jack. Finally someone noticed he was awake.

  “What -” Cameron started but found Grace on top of him, holding him and doubling his pain.

  “He’s up!” shouted Jack from behind Cameron who was still smothered.

  Grace lifted herself off him, “Cam! You are a complete idiot!” she yelled.

  Her voice rang through his already-wracked-with-pain body.

  “Grace,” said Jack as he sat down beside the two, “I have never agreed with you more.”

  “Holy shit, Cameron! Don’t do that again!” barked Daniel who also came over to join them.

  “What -” Cameron croaked, swallowed hard, and tried again, “What happened?”

  “Oh, thank God you’re awake!” said Owen as he dropped down onto Cameron.

  And now Cameron became a little irritated (understatement of the day). “What happened!” he barked.

  Emily grunted from beside them all, “Shut up.”

  “Oh, thank shit.” said Jack as he swept around the mattress and held his sister.

  “Dick! That hurts!” Emily wailed out from under him.

  And Cameron laughed, but doing so caused him to cough and he felt a burning in his throat.

  Emily rolled on the bed and faced him. She broke into a wide but tired smile.

  “Morning.” Cameron croaked at her.

  Emily giggled and waved at him, “Morning.”

  “Oh, Cameron, you beautiful man!” said Lucy as she exacted Grace and Owen’s physical reaction and draped herself over him.

  And Jack, who had pushed away from his sister by now, just couldn’t help himself in the slightest, “Think Lucy’s been bit. She’s clearly mad.”

  “What?” screeched out Blondie who was not accustomed to them and their ways.

  “Don’t worry. Jack does that.” replied Daniel.

  Blondie nodded, but he didn’t look convinced.

  “Sooooooo.” started the sleepy Emily, “How bad’s the bite looking?” She straightened out her back and peeled away the dressing around her stomach and hip, exposing her holey tummy. “Oh-ho! Nice! Check this! That’s fucking metal!”

  “Yeah.” said Owen as he leaned over and looked at it. But it was disgusting, so he pulled away and looked around at his bloody, bashed, and bruised comrades. “Hang on. How come Grace’s the only one without even a fucking bruise?”

  Grace shrugged, “I don’t know.”

  Everyone, all nine (ten if you include Mortimer) talked about, well, nothing. Or at least, almost nothing. They explained to Cameron what had happened of course, but it took him no less than eight attempts at asking before someone answered him.

  Owen, who had developed quite a habit for himself, sat down beside his window and watched the outside world. He listened to everyone talk, shout, and laugh. And true to Lucy, he really did fucking relish the fact that he was home. And everyone was alive. Including himself. It took a while to sink in, but when it did, Owen felt his eyes fill up and wandered away before his manliness could be questioned.

  He walked into his living room and went to turn o
n the television. But it was on the ground, upturned and broken. He had forgotten that happened. Owen chuckled at the sight. He wasn’t sure why, but that was just his immediate reaction.

  Some zombies outside the solid gate stole Owen’s attention. “Just one fucking day off please.” he said to himself. After collecting his bat and gun from the dining room, and putting on his armour, Owen headed outside to meet his unwelcome guests.

  He really didn’t want to use his gun, but he kept it pointed at the gate. Three zombies stood on the other side. Gnashing and moaning. Their arms and faces pushing through the bars. Then, as Owen got closer, he noticed that they were stuck. They had managed to jam their heads between the bars and their arms flailed around.

  “Naaaaarrroooooooohhh.” wailed out the closest.

  And Owen noticed, although it baffled him, that one zombie trapped in the gates looked as though he was asleep. It murmured and jerked a little as its head slipped down the bars. Owen crept forwards and tapped his bat on the bars.

  “Gnnnuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.” said the tired zombie. It looked at Owen for a while before flailing its arms. Then its arms started slopping, its eyelids started drooping, and, again, its head started to slide towards the ground.

  Owen was engrossed. Even the notion of the undead possibly sleeping was madness, yet here before him, exactly that seemed to be happening. And the only thing that ripped his gaze from the snoozing dead was Jack.

  “Fuck man,” said Jack, “they found us already? That was fast – holy fuck! Look at that one!” Jack leaned towards the indecently tired zombie, “Just. What? I mean look at it.”

  Then Jack was snared by its dozing clutches.

  They both gazed upon the grey face, neither able to look away, until another zombie approached and also managed to get itself jammed.

  “Well,” said Owen as he came back to earth, “at least they’re still thick as fuck here.”

  Jack nodded and managed to pry himself away from the single most bizarre zombie he had ever seen. “Yeah, I’m guessing that the smoke or whatever never made it this far.” Jack shifted around where he stood. He pulled his hand up and grabbed the back of his neck.