The Death in a Northern Town Trilogy (Books 1-3): Welcome To Dead Town

by Peter Mckeirnon

  “I best kill him now before he turns. That big bastard will be unstoppable as a zombie,” he said to Ed, readying his crowbar.

  About to swing the crowbar, Johno halted at the last minute as Ed stepped between the two, acting as a barrier to protect his friend.

  “You stupid fuck!” Johno growled, then pelted Ed in the side of the head with the crowbar, knocking him out and crashing into the shop shelving.

  Johno grinned menacingly and lifted his weapon high then brought it down quick and hard towards Tom’s head. But the expected impact of metal against skull never came. Instead the crowbar was met with resistance as Tom’s large hand clasped it tightly. Angrily, he rose to his feet.

  “I am not a bad man yet!” he growled, yanking the crowbar from Johno’s grasp then pushing it hard into the centre of his face, splitting his nose open.

  “Look what you’ve done to my face, I’m going to fucking kill you for this!” he screamed.

  Letting go of the crowbar, Tom gripped Johno by his throat, pushing him against the shelving. With his free hand, the big guy reached for nearby confectionary and began forcing it into Johno’s mouth. Snickers, Twix, Wispa, Mars Bars, Lion Bars… Tom filled his throat with anything he could grab until there was room for no more.

  A groggy Ed came to, opening his eyes to see Tom standing over a dead Johno, choked to death by confectionary.

  The metal shutters rattled and Deano crawled through the gap. He looked at Tom stood over Johno and with hammer in hand, dashed towards him. Before he could gain any speed, Tom tackled him at the waist, spearing him into the shutters. The impact was such that the shutters broke away from their frame completely and both men were sent crashing to the station floor.

  Deano struggled to his feet. Holding his waist in pain he attempted to make a run for it, waywardly walking through the shattered automatic doors and stumbling towards his motorbike. Tom followed, slowly stalking his prey.

  Deano mounted his bike then, noticing Tom was closing in, he panicked and fumbled with his keys, dropping them to the ground.

  Bending down to retrieve them he was met with a boot to the face, propelling him from his bike and hitting the road with a thud.

  Tom stood over him; blood flowing freely from his torn neck. He bent down and grabbed Deano by his head with both hands, lifted his face to his own so that they were eye to eye.

  “You don’t deserve to live,” Tom sneered, then he head butted him once, twice, three times with superhuman strength. Deano was dead and Tom had collapsed, holding his neck in agony.

  Ed rushed to his friend’s aid, removing his jacket to place it over Tom’s injured neck.

  “It hurts Ed, it really hurts. We were going to leave weren’t we? We were getting supplies so we can get away from Ged and never look back. You’ll have to go on your own now, I can’t come with you once I’m a bad man,” Tom cried.

  “You are still coming with me my friend don’t you worry about that. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you. All we need to do is clean out your wound, dress it properly then you’ll feel a lot better, you’ll see,” Ed reassured.

  “Do you know what made me feel better? Hurting Johno and Deano. I’ve never felt anger like it before and attacking those two dummies made me feel more alive than I have my whole life. It’s like the pain in my neck is making me weak but when I’m angry, I feel strong and ALIVE! But what’s more Ed, I enjoyed making them suffer. Because they deserved it, they deserved to die and I enjoyed killing them. Really enjoyed killing them! What’s happening to me Ed? I never used to be like this?” Tom asked, tears welling as blood continued to pour from his neck, seeping through Ed’s jacket.

  Ed pulled his friend into his arms and held him in an embrace. He loved Tom and it hurt deeply to see him in so much pain; knowing that it was only a matter of time before the infection took him.

  “It burns Ed, I feel heat from my neck spreading across my chest and it’s making me angry again. It’s the bad man isn’t it? He’s taking over; he’s going to get me!” Tom wept.

  Ed helped the big man to his feet and walked him away from the station, stopping at the taxi with the zombie driver secured inside.

  “Look at him Tom. That’s what a bad man looks like. You look nothing like him do you?” Ed said solemnly.

  Whilst Tom looked at the zombie in the taxi, Ed lifted his crowbar and drilled it hard into the back of his friend’s head, killing him instantly.

  The last thing that Tom saw whilst looking at the bad man through the car window, was his own reflection as the dark rain clouds parted momentarily and a ray of light hit the glass, replacing the taxi driver’s face with his own.

  Journal Entry 16

  “So that’s your plan?” I asked, completely flabbergasted at the ridiculousness of my brother’s scheme.

  “It’s fool-proof,” he replied.

  “It’s devised by a fool I know that much! You want us to dress up as zombies and slowly crawl through the Pavilions’ grounds, climbing over dead shufflers until we reach the building. Then we sit quietly and wait for Ged to make an appearance and when he does, we jump up, scare the shit out of him, rough him up a bit then make a run for it? Brilliant brother, faultless!” came my reply.

  “I’m in!” Emily piped up, eagerly.

  “Sneaky twat attack, I like it ace, count me in but there is no chance I’m dressing up as a zombie lar. You see this jacket I’m wearing? I bought this from a girl that used to knob Simon Le Bon from Duran Duran. There is no chance I’m getting zombie gunk on these threads kid,” Dave stated.

  “So your jacket actually belonged to Simon Le Bon?” Nick asked, impressed.

  I am surrounded by lunatics, all battling for top spot in the Zombie Apocalypse League of Mental. Butty has been running away with the lead since before the apocalypse began and now his half -baked plan to pretend to be zombies had all but secured him the title!

  After we had discovered Jonathon’s killer, who we now knew was called Ged (thanks to his gang after we had overheard them whilst hiding amongst zombies we killed and not being intimate with them in anyway), was only a short walk away, Butty, 80s Dave and I had decided to take a closer look. When we got there we found the large grounds of the sports club to be flooded with dead zombies. I mean, they were everywhere. Like a blanket of corpses that covered every blade of grass with the only clearance being the road leading to the building.

  Now we had a very important decision to make. What do we do with this discovery? We joined Emily and the others in the living room of the apartment and shared what we had uncovered and that’s when Butty told of his master plan. Emily, filled with rage and hate would have agreed to anything as long as it meant confronting Ged. But come on, really? Zombie fancy dress? It’s a long shot at best and with 80s Dave agreeing but refusing to get his retro clothes dirty it had failure written all over it.

  “I never said the jacket belonged to Simon Le Bon, just that the girl I bought it from nobbled him a few times that’s all. She got around a bit in 80s to be fair and if I recall, she also had a pirate’s hat belonging to Adam Ant and the red codpiece worn by Cameo in the music video for their hit single ‘Word Up’. She was using that as a hanging basket for a gladioli last I heard,” Dave said, answering Nick’s question.

  The room went quiet for moment, stunned into silence by Dave’s incredible ability to switch a conversation from what is important to anything to do with the 1980s.

  Whilst everyone was picturing Cameo with a house plant poking out of his codpiece, Nick was the first to get his mind back into the present and on the matter at hand.

  “What if the girls stayed here and I went with Dave? We could walk right up to the Pavilions and act as a distraction whilst you guys played undead and sneak attacked Ged?” He suggested.

  Butty grinned from ear to ear, “It’s like you read my mind! Maybe my old friend Trust No-one taught you a thing or two after all.”

  “Butty, a word in private if I may big brother,�
�� I said sternly.

  Butty followed me out onto the hallway and we closed the door behind us, leaving Emily, Nick and the girls listening to 80s Dave as he continued to harp on about Duran Duran and how the extreme amount of hairspray consumed by Nick Rhodes over the last thirty years has single handedly destroyed the Ozone layer. And as much as I enjoy listening to Dave’s tales, I needed to talk some sense into Butty in private, without the others encouraging him!

  “You can’t really believe that this plan of yours is a good idea? Pretending to be zombies to get close to Ged and then what? Beat him up a bit then leg it? That’s if your plan works at all and let’s be honest here, it’s a long shot at best. There are better odds on me suddenly developing a love of mayonnaise or Dave removing his sunglasses. The only thing this plan will achieve is getting us all killed. I’ve only just got Emily back and I’m damned if I’m going to lose her again. Not a chance Butty, there has to be another way?” I argued.

  To my surprise and for only the second time in our lives, Butty actually listened to me. The first time that this phenomenon happened was when we were kids and he had become obsessed with a girl named Karen Forde that lived across the road from us. She was older, more mature, mysterious and for my brother, the perfect woman. He would spend hour after hour, sat in his bedroom window, staring at her house, hoping to see her walk past a window or open the front door. It was all innocent at first and quite funny to watch him swooning over someone that wouldn’t give him the time of day. But it quickly moved from admiring her from a far to sitting in her drive way on his Chopper, singing Renee and Renato’s ‘Save Your Love’ every morning before school. Then after a few weeks of his love laden warblings, things had escalated again. I came home one day to find him standing in front of his bedroom mirror taking pictures of himself with a Polaroid camera. Not so strange you might think and you’re right, it wouldn’t have been, if he wasn’t wearing her underwear! He had pinched her knickers and bra from her washing line and thought it would be a good idea to snap himself wearing them and send the pictures to her. He thought it would show how much he loved her! Luckily, and for the first time in his life, he saw sense and listening to me, changed his mind at the very last minute. And it’s a good job too as am sure Karen being presented with pictures of him bent over in her knickers would have resulted in the men in white coats coming to take him away. It was around that time he became a full blown apocalypse nut, dedicating all of his free time in preparing for the end of the world. He’d never shown much interest in girls after his obsession with Karen, until recently that is.

  “Well there is one other way but it will take a bit of organising and we will still need to get Ged out of the Pavilions and set up a trap. He’s too secure in there. Nick seems keen to help…”

  “No, absolutely not! Everyone we meet ends up dead. Jonathon, Brittain, Steven… the girl with the Hulk fist and cape could be dead for all we know. We’re not getting anyone else killed and besides, he’s got the girl and baby, to take care of. They need to be safe and as far away from us as possible. Somewhere secure if there is such a place anymore,” I said.

  “I’ve been thinking about that little brother. We have been on the move since my house burnt down and I have been trying to think of somewhere we can go when this is all over. We need somewhere similar to my house. Zombie proof and with enough supplies to keep us going for a while. We can’t keep roaming the streets moving from house to house. We wouldn’t last more than week if we did that. If zombies don’t get us than a paranoid and scared survivor will. There is only one place and one person we can turn to,” Butty said, retrieving his C.B. radio from his utility belt, “Sky Watcher!”

  Sky Watcher, Butty’s secret crush and fellow surviving member of A.R.S.E! Given our circumstances it made sense. She had followed my brother’s advice and secured her home under his tutorage. We should be safe there, from zombies at least. Crazy bastards like Ged? Well it appears this town is full of them! Other survivors will always be a threat and we will have to learn how to keep a low profile. Correction, 80s Dave and Butty will have to learn how to keep a low profile. Once we had taken care of Runcorn’s craziest of bastards that is!

  “Whilst the prospect of living with two apocalyptic crazies doesn’t exactly fill me with delight it is the best plan we have. If she’s up for taking us in that is? When was the last time you talked to her” I asked.

  “Early this morning at Brittain’s place. I popped upstairs for a shit whilst you were chatting with Dave in the kitchen, so I checked in to see how she was,” he replied.

  My face gave a mixed expression of confusion and disgust. Did I just hear right? Did he say he contacted the woman he had a crush on to check if she was still alive whilst sat on a porcelain throne with his pants around his ankles pushing out a poo?

  “I’m at my most relaxed when I’m having a poo so why not? I find it easier to talk to people when I’m relaxed. You know how much I hate social contact. I find it difficult communicating face to face never mind over the phone and add to that it’s Sky Watcher and well… you know how much I like her. Talking whilst shitting gets me through. Plus, when I’m straining I sound a bit like Clint Eastwood and she likes that.” he explained.

  Which made me think about the thousands of conversations we’ve had over the years using a telephone. He must have sensed what I was thinking because before I could ask he looked at me and nodded slowly, “every single one,” he said.

  Imagining Butty taking a dump whilst talking like Dirty Harry aside, I was sold on the idea of sending Nick and the girls away to Sky Watcher’s place. If she was half as batty as my brother, and all evidence was suggesting she was, then they would be safe. A lot safer than staying with us anyway and then, when Jonathon was avenged, we would join them and have a place we could start again.

  “Do you think she’ll take us in? All of us?” I asked.

  “Absolutely. Well, me definitely but I’m sure I can convince her to put us up. It might be only temporary till we find a place of our own. I’ll try and get hold of her now on but listen, this plan I have to take care of Ged. It will work but it will take some planning and it’s something I need to do on my own. It’s dangerous and I need to work quickly and without detection. If you, Emily and Dave come too then you’ll only slow me down. If Sky Watcher agrees, I’ll take Nick and the kids to her then I’ll get everything ready for Ged. You, Emily and Dave stay here and keep an eye on the Pavilions, I’ll leave you with a C.B. radio so we can keep in touch but whatever you do, do not make a move on the fucker without me. You’ll get yourselves killed. If he moves or if anything changes then speak to me first,” he said, pushing a C.B. radio into my hands.

  “Are you going to share your plan to extract revenge?” I asked.

  “I would but you’d think I was crazy,” he replied.

  Like I needed any help thinking he was crazy!

  Devil At Your Door

  Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap…

  Ged sat behind the desk in the office of the Pavilions, swaying on his chair whilst tapping the blunt end of a pencil into the wooden surface. The desk was littered with broken pencils, all due to his frustration and impatience.

  Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap… SNAP

  Another pencil gone.

  Also on the desk was Joni’s scab covered, decaying head. He had placed his cousin directly in front of him, with a glass of straight Scotch resting next to his chin.

  Ged rummaged in the desk draw, flinging paper work to the floor till he found what he was looking for.

  Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap…

  He looked at the clock, it was late afternoon and Ed, Tom, Johnno and Deano had been gone for a lot longer than expected. He had sent his men out to scavenge for supplies, with the instruction of hitting Runcorn railway station as a priority. Ticket machines and cash machines meant that monetary supplies should be plentiful and the station shop would be a good source for looting food and drink. Ged wasn’t stupid, he knew that
money had no place anymore but he had one eye on the future and if zombies were to be eradicated then it may once again become a trading commodity.

  Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap…

  He felt Joni’s cold blue eyes glaring at him. His eyes were not always blue. When he was alive they were a dark brown but since his death the loss of pigment and draining of blood from his peepers had caused the colour to change to an icy blue. It was unsettling, even for someone like Ged.

  “What is it Joni? Haven’t you got anything better to do than stare at me questionably all afternoon? You’ve not even taken as much as a sip of your whisky and whisky my dear cousin, will soon be difficult to come by.”

  Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap…

  Still he felt Joni’s eyes upon him.

  “Yes I know what time it is, I’ve been looking at the clock all afternoon. I am fully aware they should be back by now.”

  Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap… SNAP

  Ged clenched a fist around the broken pencil.

  “That was my last pencil,” he smarted, pushing his chair back before taking to his feet and pacing the office.

  “Oh really Joni? You think that? You think they would turn on me when they know what I’m capable of? Well that’s why I’m the boss and you are just a rotting head! After what I did to Paul, chopping his head off in front of them, Johno and Deano wouldn’t dare. Plus they are too stupid to turn on me and Ed has always been my most loyal employee. Plus he has that big dumb bastard Tom to take care of. He knows they are safer with me than on their own. Well it comes as no surprise that you’d think that, you’ve always hated Ed. Even if you’re right and they have turned on me, they wouldn’t make it far. I’d hunt them down then kill them, slowly and very, very painfully. So that in their final moments all they would think of is me and how if they’d only stayed loyal they wouldn’t be about to die!”