by Dwyer, James
When I reached the supermarket, I could see yellow paint splashed across the windows. Survivors had been here, left the signal that the place was clear. I wasn’t quite sure why yellow paint had been chosen. Maybe something to do with “Tie A Yellow Ribbon”, although I was sure that was to do with people going missing. Whatever the meaning, the paint seemed to work. I had never entered a marked building to find it not secured. It seemed that a sense of fair play worked amongst survivors when it came to these buildings. Don’t screw over someone else by being careless. Leave the building as you find it.
I ignored the front doors and made my way round the back. The big glass entranceway was vulnerable and there was no sense breaking my way in only to leave an easy access point behind me. The yellow paint agreed, arrows pointing round the side of the building to a door at the back. It was locked, a nearby rock painted yellow hiding the key below it. I looked at the door and saw a date written crudely in paint. “23/07”. I looked at the digital display of my watch. August the second. Survivors had been here recently. The chances of the place being secure increased.
I placed the key in the lock, having to force it inside, something in the keyhole obstructing it at first. I opened the door, smiling as I was greeted by blue tinted fluorescent lighting. It was some sort of security office, dead CCTV monitors filling space against one wall. I stepped inside and bathed for a moment in the light. Sanctuary. It’s strange how much you miss simple things like the glow of a light bulb. I had always thought artificial lighting was beautiful in some ways, the way it glowed defiantly against a night sky.
I turned to close the door behind me. As I pushed the door closed, I spotted the cause of the blockage in the keyhole. A spare key. Immediately I realised that someone else was in the supermarket. Someone who had locked themselves inside. It was too late in the day for me to leave, I would have to stay.
I made my way into the main area of the supermarket, where the aisles and checkouts were located. As I walked I called out “Hello? Is anyone there?” to try and coax whoever was inside to reveal themselves. I had no intentions to cause any trouble. Just to rest the night and take whatever supplies they could spare. If it came to it, I would fight for a place inside for the night. The service pistol tucked in my trousers would help. A last resort.
My calls went unanswered, my voice moving down the aisles and finding no one. It made me uneasy. If there was a survivor still inside, and I was pretty sure that there was, then why weren’t they answering?
I decided to ignore the aisles for now and head to the back of the store. I could see a large set of double doors ahead, “STAFF ONLY” written across them. As I neared the doors, I heard the crackle of static coming from a radio.
I pushed the doors open slowly, again calling out in hope of response. The doors opened onto a long corridor, with offices and changing rooms on one side, a large staff room on the other. At the far end, double doors labelled “STOCK ROOM”. The radio noise was coming from the staff room so I checked inside there first.
The staff room had been converted into a makeshift campsite, complete with sofas made into bunks, camping stoves for a kitchen, and a table covered in old magazines and playing cards. I spotted two hands had been dealt in the last game. Also on the table, a large green military radio, like one of those early mobile phone models. Chunky plastic and a long, unwieldy aerial.
In the corner of the room, a stack of backpacks sat stuffed with tins of food and tools. No one would have abandoned this camp. Either the survivors left to return later, or something bad had happened and they would never return. It didn’t make sense. I had never met a survivor who didn’t carry all their belongings with them. If you returned to your camp and zombies were there, you would be screwed without your gear. You always took it with you. Always.
Campsite still in place. Door locked from the inside. “The survivors must still be here somewhere.”
I left the staff room and returned to the corridor. “Hello?” I said, “I’m just here to rest for the night. Not here to steal anything.”
No one answered. I started to get a sick feeling in my stomach. Something was definitely wrong here. Not zombies, they would have revealed themselves by now. I had heard rumours of survivors going…feral. Forgoing their humanity when law and order failed us. In many ways, life now is an honour system. Do unto others, what you would want done unto you. Most survivors obeyed this unwritten rule. Others murdered, pillaged, raped.
I took out the service pistol from my backpack and moved to the other doors. The first I went to was the manager’s office according to the sign. I pushed slowly, trying to be as unthreatening as possible in case anyone was inside, although I suspected otherwise.
The office was empty and had been completely trashed. The desk was overturned, papers and notices on the wall torn and shredded on the floor. Someone had written on the wall, in what I hoped was mud or chocolate but suspected otherwise, was a message to what I presumed to have been the former manager of the supermarket. “I hope they bite your fucking head off Mr Hamble you fucking piece of shit.” When the undead rose around here, someone had their priorities right.
I moved onto the next room, “CHANGING ROOM”. When I tried the door, it resisted. Something heavy on the other side prevented the door from opening completely. The gap wasn’t big enough for me to stick my head through. If I wanted to see, I would have to push harder.
I tried the door again, this time trying to judge why it wouldn’t give. Was the door jammed or had it been blocked? The front door was locked, was this another attempt at sealing something inside? I stopped for a moment, to consider my next move. I had to check inside. If I didn’t clear the building, I would be awake all night wondering what went on here, and whether I was truly alone. I needed to rest, get a good night’s sleep. The next move was clear to me. Open the door.
I took a step back from the door and prepared to charge it with my left shoulder. I held the pistol ready in my right hand. Just in case.
I charged the door, my shoulder slamming into it hard. The first strike it didn’t budge. Second, it moved back slightly farther. I could hear books and boxes moving on the other side. With the third, the door moved all the way open, boxes and papers scattered inside, revealing the large changing room inside.
The lights had been switched off, so I fumbled for the switch beside the doorframe. In the dark, I could make out some shapes at the far end of the office, impossible to distinguish without light. I guessed they were bodies.
My fingers found the light switch, hovering around it, afraid to illuminate the darkness ahead of me. I steeled myself and switched the light on.
My initial guess had been correct, there were two bodies in the room. I was not prepared for their condition. The first was on the ground, lying slumped against a row of lockers. The body was normal; the face…the face had been completely destroyed. Someone had caved the skull in, stamping down until nothing but a reddish pink bloody paste remained. I could see a large bite wound on one of the arms. The body had been a survivor caught by a zombie, the infection spreading, threatening to take hold. Why the body had been destroyed so severely I don’t know.
The second body hung from a noose tied around some coat hooks screwed to the far wall. I could see by the dead man’s pained expression that it had not been a quick death. Looking closer, I could see bloody scratch marks around his neck. The man had changed his mind a little too late.
Tucked into the man’s pocket, I could see a piece of paper sticking out, “Please Read” written across the visible portion. A suicide note. I had no interest in finding out the poor man’s final thoughts. I was tired. Time to check the rest of the building before getting some sleep.
The rest of my search was mercifully uneventful. The stock room had been cleared of anything remotely useful. Only random items like cupcake wrappers remained untouched. The place had been picked clean.
I stopped by the changing room on my way to the makeshift campsite. The st
illness of the scene inside still chilled me to the core. I switched the light off and pulled the door closed. It felt like an act of respect to close the door and seal the pair in their improvised mausoleum. Let them rest in peace for now.
Once back inside the staff room, I cleared the bedding from one of the bunks and replaced it with my own. Seeing that the food stored in the corner would go to waste otherwise, I helped myself to a tin of chicken soup, heating it on the stove in the improvised kitchen.
I had just sat down with a steaming hot cup of soup when the radio crackled again. This time the static seemed less random, almost purposeful. As if someone was tuning in.
“Attention! Attention!”
A voice on the radio! I dropped the cup of soup in shock and ran over, turning the volume up to maximum.
“This is a message to all survivors. Camp Churchill is organising airlifts out of the infected zone to safe territory. All survivors able to travel should proceed to zone E2 immediately. Food, shelter and medical attention available. ”
The message repeated itself, an automated broadcast across the airwaves. I could hardly believe it. I didn’t think there were any safe zones, never mind transport out to them. Was it just the UK that had been affected by the dead coming back?
I rushed over to my backpack and took out my map. Zone E2. Only twenty miles away from here. If…If I travelled directly through a nearby town, Aylescombe. A dead zone. The quickest route was straight through it. Not what I wanted to do, but my options were limited. Escape was waiting for me, a way out of this day-to-day survival, to find somewhere I could live without fear. Maybe even find a cure for my blindness.
I packed the map away and retired to my bunk, all thoughts of hunger gone from my mind. My movements so far had been aimless. Now I had someplace to go, a target. Something to work towards to. And hope. For a future, any future.
Still, going blind would not be too bad. Not after all the horror I had seen. I lay back in my bed and closed my eyes, drifting off into sleep. My last thought before falling unconscious: I hope Libby heard the broadcast too.
✖
As I slept, the recurring dream I had been suffering from came back to me. A little snippet of nastiness transmitted from my subconscious.
In the dream I am at my father’s house, making my way to the living room. I can hear my grandfather laughing before I go inside. The gleeful laugh he developed after my father went blind. His mocking guffaw of victory.
I push open the living room door and see three armchairs, side by side. In the centre sits my grandfather. He is laughing so hard that he is shaking, his eyes wide open and staring at me. He is still blind, but there I can tell that he can see me. Something in the dark clouds he stares at me through showing that he can see everything. I have never seen him so happy.
Beside him sits my father, head bowed, empty bottle of whiskey in his hand. He doesn’t look at me as I enter, his eyes never moving from the floor. He sighs heavily, his breathing deep and laboured. This is the image I have of my father. A broken, defeated man.
“Come on son. Take your place.”
Grandfather gestures for me to take my place in the empty seat. I am filled with a sudden intense dread that if I sit down, I will never be able to get up. That I’ll be stuck there with the two most important men in my life and condemned to be just as miserable, horrible as they are.
Even with this feeling, my legs move independently. Forcing me towards them, to my seat beside them. I feel like screaming for help, that’s how desperate I am to get away from there.
I turn away and my head starts to hurt, an intense pain that I can truly feel in my head, not just part of my dream. Everything starts to go black, my whole life fading to black before me.
“Come and sit down,” says grandfather, “You’ll be safe here with us. You can’t fight it. It’s in your blood, my blood that flows through your veins. Give up.”
And then it’s all over.
✖
It was a few seconds after I woke up when I realised that the low painful mumbling I could hear was the sound of a Moaner. Despite the dream, it was a peaceful sleep, helped by the sense of hope I felt from the radio message. I had been lying to myself for a long time about how everything would be fine for me, that somehow I would find a way to cope. When an escape route finally revealed itself, I snatched at it with both hands.
Another low, rasping moan. Too close. It wasn’t the cry of a normal Moaner; the sound was too distorted, almost choked. Something blocking the evil thing’s throat…
How could I have been so stupid? The hanged man in the changing room. He had suffocated himself. There was no spinal trauma, no short sharp drop to snap his neck and sever the brain stem. Just a slow agonising death, the scratch marks on the neck. Of course he would come back.
I rolled out of bed still half asleep. I fumbled for my backpack, my hand desperately searching for the service pistol. My eyes were useless; whatever the condition was it made waking up a delayed process. Everything was just shadows and blurs, abstract shapes dancing around me. Reaching out, my hand knocked over the camping stove, sending it crashing loudly to the ground.
The noise seemed to echo through the room. It might as well have been a dinner bell. The metallic crash was immediately followed by a loud moan. The zombie was coming for me. Time to improvise.
I crawled across the floor to the door, forgoing the search for the pistol for now. If I could keep the door shut until my eyesight returned, I would have a fighting chance. Footsteps shuffled outside the room, the moaning a soft murmur. It sounded confused. Lost even. I froze, holding my body against the door, to become one with it. One solid piece of wood that the zombie wouldn’t be able to open.
“Attention! Attention! This is a message…”
The radio crackled into life, the same broadcast calling out as the night before. What had filled me with relief now caused a sudden intense dread.
It might as well have been saying “Here zombie zombie zombie. Dinnertime.”
The moaner walked up to the door, I could feel its presence on the other side. It paused for a second, a small hesitation, before launching itself against the door with all its weight.
The first impact almost pushed me down to the floor, my feet scrambling against the floor to gain purchase. The force of the blow was unbelievable. The wooden door cracked loudly as the Moaner attacked again. I was prepared this time, braced myself better. Even so, I felt the impact in my bones, my teeth jarring in my mouth.
The room was starting to take shape around me, detail slowly forming from the blurs and shadows. What scared me were the little “artefacts” that lingered too long, like blocky squares when the digital television loses signal. These small specks of darkness that acted like black holes in my vision. One day this would be all that was left. It didn’t seem like natural darkness, like when I closed my eyes. This was a deeper black than I had ever known.
The Moaner attacked the door again, this time forcing it off its hinges. I stood up and pushed back, using the door as a shield between the zombie and myself. I could see it glaring at me through the frosted glass, pained red eyes, teeth gnashing against the window. The Moaner moved back, preparing to throw itself again. I took the opportunity, stepping aside like a bullfighter. The zombie crashed forward, hitting the discarded door before rolling onto the floor.
Before I could celebrate any victory, one greying dead hand reached out and grabbed tightly onto my ankle. At first I thought my ankle would break, the grip on my leg so strong, like a vice closing. The zombie began dragging me towards it, its body still contorted and twisted beneath the door. It was trying to right itself and attack me at the same time, caught between defence and attack.
I quickly looked round me to find something I could use to defend myself. The closest thing to hand was one of the cooking pots from the camping stove. It seemed a bit looney tunes to me but I went with it, grabbing the handle and bringing it down on the Moaner’s head.
/> The first strike dazed the zombie; its red eyes seemed to glaze over briefly. Spurred on by the reaction, I began hitting again and again until the pot and the zombie’s skull was distorted beyond recognition. The grip on my ankle loosened and I backed away. The Moaner was dead, it had to be.
I ran to my backpack and started packing my things. I took the radio from the desk and switched it off before adding it to my gear. Then I took the backpacks from the corner of the room and combined all the contents into the biggest. I didn’t want to be here a moment longer. Best to take what I could and move on out.
When I turned to leave the room, the Moaner was looking at me, its red eyes staring into mine. It seemed to be furious with me, enraged that I had stopped its attack. The hunger. It sent a chill down my spine.
The zombie was unmoving, perhaps paralysed. I wasn’t sure. I stepped towards the door, moving around the edge of the room to avoid the fallen. The eyes followed me, the body frozen in place. Like a creepy portrait in some haunted house film.
I reached the open doorway, still facing the zombie. I was about to step outside when the fallen undead started convulsing violently, almost like an epileptic fit. The black pupils in its eyes turned red like the rest of the eyeball, its skin shivering, goose pimples popping up all over.
I had never seen anything like it before and it scared me. I felt paralysed, frozen to the spot, unable to look away. I quickly reached round to my backpack and took out my pistol. It was a waste of a bullet but I had no choice. I had to stop it.
I took aim and closed my eyes, not wanting to see the impact. The gunshot was incredibly loud, echoing round the staff room. When I opened my eyes, the zombie had stopped moving. Its head had gone, replaced by a shallow bloody puddle of broken bone and flesh.
My hand shaking, I tucked the pistol into the back of my trousers and quickly left.
I was outside of the supermarket and away from the retail estate when I was calm enough to slow down. I was unsure of why the convulsing zombie had disturbed me so much. In the months since the collapse, never had I seen a zombie show such signs of…life? Was that what it was? That the zombie had seemed alive to me, a living organism that I had been forced to execute. The thought made me feel physically sick, my stomach twisting into a knot, acid reflux burning my throat. I collapsed down to my knees, holding onto the turf, almost afraid that if I let go, I would fly away, lost into a swirling vortex of nausea.
