by Alex South
Suddenly, the body fell still. It became another corpse, another person - hooked nose, receding hairline, pot belly. A man they would never meet. Elena ran to the front door and slammed it.
“DAAAADDDYYY!” The little girl shouted.
“Take her downstairs!” Jess shouted to John.
John turned and they all followed him towards the basement stairs. He noticed that Rob hadn’t moved from his original position. Had he stayed back out of self-preservation?
“DAAAADDDYYY!” the little girl kicked in his grip.
They came to the bottom. John moved to a wooden chair in the centre of the room and forced the squirming girl onto it. John watched as Elena fulfilled her pre-assigned role, grabbing the ropes and wrapping them around the girl again and again.
Now he let go and backed away. Breathing heavily, he numbly checked his gloves for holes or tears, allowing relief to crash upon him as he found nothing.
They were all standing in a semi-circle around her as her screams rattled against the walls.
“DAAAADDDYYY!” Her face was red. Her body shook and fought so much that she seemed at risk of hurting herself.
John looked at Duke. “You want to interrogate her?” he shouted. Adrenaline had jacked his system. Sheer power surged through him. He felt like a god.
Duke was very pale. He didn’t respond. John stared at him for a while, then back at the little girl. Then, he pulled at Duke, and shouted and waved at the others, managing to communicate, over the noise of the girl, that they should follow him. Jess shook her head and gestured that she was staying there.
They arrived at the top of the stairs; the dead man lay on their left as they moved right into the living room. John looked at Duke again. He was looking at the ground and didn’t look like he was going to speak anytime soon
John turned to the others. “We should get the body in the freezer.”
Some of them nodded and they all turned to leave.
“Wait. Is that her Daddy?” said Dreadlocks.
“I don’t know,” said John.
“Maybe he’s got powers as well,” said Dreadlocks. Suddenly, they all looked back at the hallway.
“Well, put him outside then,” said John.
“We can’t open that door again,” said Dreadlocks.
“Where’s Jess?” said Elena suddenly.
“She’s watching the girl,” said John.
“Alone?!” said Elena, now heading back to the basement and shouting angrily in Spanish. Rob followed her.
“Maybe we should tie up the body,” said Dreadlocks.
“Okay, yeah… and make sure it’s dead,” said John.
“Right.”
“I’ll do that,” said John. “You go get the ropes.”
“Yeah.” Dreadlocks left.
John walked back into the hallway, found his knife on the floor and picked it up.
…
The little girl was screaming as John and Dreadlocks came down the stairs with the corpse. Jess and Elena were shouting as loud as they could, trying to talk to her. Rob was standing with them, but saying nothing. They put the body on the floor. Dreadlocks moved over to one of the two chest freezers in the room and rested his hand on it.
John suddenly realised what he was going to see. Dreadlocks lifted the lid. John peered inside. He saw a midriff, no head, no arms, no legs, just a midriff with a large chunk taken out of it.
Dreadlocks opened the second one, revealing two legs, still connected by a pelvis, and an arm. The right leg was missing most of the thigh. He stared, having never seen anything like it. He didn’t feel disgusted. A collection of shapes in a freezer. For some reason that was all he saw.
“If we put that one with that one,” shouted Dreadlocks pointing to the contents of one freezer, and then to the contents of the other, “we can get him in that one.” He pointed back to the first freezer.
“Okay,” replied John. He reached down and grabbed a leg.
With some difficulty, they eventually managed to cram the body inside, and get the lid down. Now they moved to stand with Laura and Jess.
“She won’t listen us!” Elena told them over her screams.
…
“Duke?” John said, having come back up to the living room to find Duke sitting on one of the sofas.
Duke raised his eyebrows, but didn’t move his gaze. “Yeah?” he said distantly.
“What are you doing?”
“I need to shower,” he said, suddenly urgent.
“Oh, yeah. You should.”
Duke left and went upstairs.
Chapter 17
Duke stepped out of the shower. He didn’t feel clean. He dried himself, got dressed, and came downstairs. John and Dreadlocks were in the living room.
“Everyone okay?” Duke smiled weakly.
“Yeah,” said Dreadlocks quietly.
“Yeah… yeah, it’s good to get clean.” He stood there for a while. “Can someone give me a hug?”
No one moved. John enjoyed leaving him in awkward silence, the selfish bastard could suffer.
“I’m really sorry,” said Duke, “But… we got her.”
Dreadlocks stood up, moved forward and hugged him. “Next time we do it together,” he said. John felt a stab of anger towards Dreadlocks. How could he just forgive him like that?
Duke nodded. “Where are Jess and Elena?”
“They’re still with the girl, but it doesn’t look like we’re going to get anything out of her for a while,” said Dreadlocks.
…
“Hey! Shut up!” Duke shouted. He was facing Stacy – her eyes were closed, her mouth was open as she rattled the basement walls with screams.
“Hey!” Duke shouted again. No response.
His mind swam. The longer she was here, the longer they were at risk. Maybe she would bring the zombies here or maybe she had some other powers - something that she couldn’t use right now, but, in time, would be used to kill them.
He knew the end game. She had to be taken out. There were some doubts floating around – perhaps she had some sort of immunity, as Rob claimed to have. Perhaps there was some posterity in taking a sample of her blood. But these were ideas he could not entertain, in the face of a more overwhelming conviction – the world would be better without her darkness. And maybe, just maybe, the apocalypse would end.
But first he had to at least try to get her to talk. To find out something, anything.
“What are you?” he shouted. She gave no indication that she had even heard him. He tried another question, “What do you want?” - before moving onto negotiations - “Do you want anything? Stop screaming; I’ll give you sweets! Come on, just calm down; talk to us.”
No matter what he said, nothing worked.
And Duke felt the rising pressure, with Jess, Dreadlocks, Rob and Elena standing just behind him, watching. He wondered if they would try to stop him, when the moment came. For a long time he stood there, staring dumbly at the child, her high-pitched wails scratching at the inside of his head. And then, suddenly, he knew that the time had come, that she would never stop screaming, that she would never help them.
He knew that he had to just do it. No thinking. No hesitation. Don’t let the doubts creep in. Just get it over with. He pulled his knife and stepped forward. He placed the blade against her neck. He jerked it sideways. Blood splattered onto his chest. The screams stopped.
…
John had agreed to guard Rob’s bedroom door, although, in his opinion, it was becoming less and less necessary. Surely if he was going to turn, he would have done so by now. Yet, here he was, with the lights on, sitting in a chair, facing Rob’s door at the end of the corridor. He had a terrible headache, which he was sure was related to his hunger. Sausages, bacon, cheese, bread. His mind flashed through the things that his stomach craved. His body was getting weaker. He could feel it. The idea of standing up seemed impossible. And the blankets, hats, and numerous layers of clothes he was wearing felt like a second s
kin, insofar as it felt as if without them he would die. The cold would suck the life out of him. He could feel the way they trapped the warmth against him. He could feel the way they held it inside.
The little girl was dead. He hadn’t seen it happen. He thought about how Duke had tricked them. Sure, it had all worked out pretty well. But it wasn’t right. They would have to wait and see if it had any effect on the undead. If killing her had killed them, then… then he was the hero. But as much as John wanted to believe, it seemed unlikely to him her death would magically stop the zombies as Duke seemed to think it would.
But inside him, hope was burning. They had Rob’s blood as a potential cure. They had the little girl out of the way. And they had a plan. They would get out of there, they would get a car, they would leave. It felt good not to be helpless. It felt good to have something at stake, something to cling to in all of this.
His mind flashed back to Laura’s room, when the girl’s screams had pierced the air, and he had fallen apart. He wasn’t well. He knew that. He was unstable. Still, he had coped alright when it had come to it. He had helped fight that zombie. It was stupid really, when the danger came, when the adrenaline was in control, he had been able to cope. Why couldn’t he just be okay? He asked himself. So he had seen terrible things; so he didn’t have day to day safety. So what? That had happened to plenty of people in the history of the world. They just got on with it.
He was pathetic, he told himself. From now on, no more. No more being weak. He held the promise in his mind, trying to burn conviction into it.
Time seemed endless, as he sat there – as if he could stay here forever. If he could just be careful and still, somehow the universe would forget about him, and he and these walls would slip out of its grasp and into eternity.
The sound of footsteps caught his ears. His adrenaline surged. He listened as the noise grew louder — knowing they must belong to Rob. The door opened a few centimetres, then fully.
“Hey,” said John finally.
“Hello,” said Rob.
…
John and Rob were together in the kitchen sharing the table, and the quiet of the night, whilst Rob slowly drank a glass of water. And in the light and space of that room, Rob said something that surprised John greatly.
“I want to be part of the group. I want to be better with everyone.”
“Yeah?” said John.
“Yes.”
“What made you feel like this suddenly?” John asked.
“I was thinking. I’m not good with people. I want to be better.”
“Well, you know, that sounds good,” said John.
“Yes.”
There was a silence.
“So, tell me about yourself anyway. I don’t know… I don’t know you. I don’t know anything, apart from you like chess.”
Rob made a little shrug. “What do you want to know?”
“What did you do for work?” John said, remembering, as he spoke, that he had already asked him this.
“I was cleaner,” said Rob.
“Cool… cool… I worked in a bar,” said John.
“Which one.”
“The Red Fox, in Manchester, you know it?”
“No.”
“Yeah, well, anyway, that’s where I worked. And so… where did you use to live?”
“Hazel Grove.”
“Okay, where abouts? I mean I don’t know this area so, just roughly, in relation to here.”
“I live on Park Lane.”
“I don’t know where that is.”
“It’s in the centre of the town.”
“Okay.”
“I have a pet snake.”
“Oh… cool.”
“Yes. Douglas.”
“Okay, cool. Unusual pet.”
The conversation continued on like this, as they talked about little things, until Rob broke its flow:
“I’m going to leave the house.”
“When?” said John, thrown by this sudden claim, and unsure exactly what he meant.
“Now,” Rob said.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I want you to stay. I’m going to go and find some food so you don’t have to go.”
“But… it’s night time.”
“Don’t mind.”
“Well… er… why not go in the day?”
“Because you’re leaving. I want you to stay.”
John took a moment to try and get his head around what Rob was saying. “So you’re going to just… go out there?”
“Yes.” Rob stood up.
“Wait… I… don’t go. It’s dangerous.”
“Why?”
“Because you won’t even see them coming.”
“Don’t want to.”
“Wh… what?”
“Are you not hungry?”
“Yeah, but…”
“I’m going.”
Rob stood up
“Even with food, we’re still going to go,” said John. But Rob ignored him and left the room. John went after him, trying again and again to change his mind. He followed him up to his room - whereupon Rob disappeared and returned with a ruck sack – and then back down to the front door. Before he knew it, Rob was opening the front door and closing it behind him. And John stood there, not moving, not saying a word as he stared at the empty space Rob had left behind.
…
The rest of John’s night duty passed reluctantly. The hours seemed only able to pass through inevitability. It was Duke that first signalled some sort of end, coming up the stairs to talk to him.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” said John.
Duke patted him on the shoulder a few times and then gave it a squeeze.
“How’s life?” he asked.
“Rob’s gone?”
Duke’s face dropped. “What?”
“He left.”
“Why?”
“He went to find some food. He thinks that we’ll stay, if he gets some.”
For a long time, Duke said nothing, simply staring at the ground and rubbing his forehead. “Why didn’t you stop him?”
“Er… I tried.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“Well, he’s gone. There’s nothing to do.”
“You should have woken me up.”
“What difference would it make?”
“Where’s he going?”
“He didn’t say.”
Duke pursed his lips.
“It is what it is,” said John. “If he comes back, he comes back… and… well, we’ll see.”
A long silence passed. John started to become more and more uncomfortable. He was starting to get the impression that Duke had hit a mental wall, and that if John didn’t do something, Duke would stand there for hours, doing nothing except staring into nothingness. But then Duke finally spoke. “We should look in his room.”
“Oh… why?”
He shrugged. “Because we can. You know? Maybe we’ll find something useful.”
“All right.”
…
John entered the room. He had been here once before, back when he got the hot water bottle for Laura. It hadn’t changed that much. It was still a mess. It still smelt bad, or as he now thought, it still smelt like Rob.
Duke searched and John followed his lead. They checked under the bed, in the wardrobe and draws, and everywhere else they could think of. The search was mostly a waste of time. There was, however, one object of interest – a wooden box, with a picture of a galaxy on the front.
Chapter 18
John softly opened the door. Laura turned her head to look at him.
“You’re still awake,” said John.
“Yeah.”
“Guess what I found,” said John
“What?”
John held up the box.
“Oh… fuck… thank God. Where?”
“I found it in Rob’s room. He’s out, so… but do you think i
t’s okay? It won’t mess with the healing.”
“Oh, God, no. They, like, give people pain killers all the time in hospital.”
“Well, they’re not pain killers.”
“You know what I mean. I need the sleep. If anything screws me over, it’ll be lack of sleep, you know? What do you mean Rob’s out?”
“He’s out… he’s gone to look for food.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“Does he think the zombies are gone?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t mention it. He never seemed to believe that stuff, though”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think they’re gone.”
“We’ll find out… thanks, John,” she said, taking the Valium from him. “Don’t let anyone wake me up, okay? Unless it’s, like, really… really important.”
“Okay.”
“Are there pain killers?”
John rooted around inside the box, finally finding some amongst what was mostly a stash of illegal drugs – some of which he recognised, some of which he didn’t.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Give me them.”
…
John sat down outside Laura’s door. He wanted to make sure no one came in and disturbed her. A few hours later, a little while after the sun had risen, he checked in on her. She was totally asleep. He left the room and moved along the hallway, coming across Jess walking up the stairs.
“John, go downstairs.”
“Why?” said John.
“Rob’s brought some food!”
“Really?”
“Yeah!”
Jess went to pass him.
“Wait, don’t wake Laura up.”
“But we’re going to eat.”
“This is the first time she’s slept since we got here. She made me promise not to wake her up.”
“But she must be hungry.”
“She can eat after.”
“Okay.”
John followed Jess downstairs and they entered the kitchen. Elena, Dreadlocks, Duke and Rob were all there. On the table, was a very large glass container full of nuts and raisins.
“Good news,” said Duke, smiling.
John stared at it. “Where did you find it?”
