Zombie Survival: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller

by James King

  “Come on, please,” said Jenny, “they’ll be here soon...”

  “Who?” Ted suddenly asked. The sound of his own voice, uttering a word, conversing, however perfunctorily, with another human being was almost like a shock to him. But once the initial split-second shock had passed, other words came, quickly, almost naturally. Speaking these words was like remembering another life, one that had happened to him long, long ago...

  “Who’s coming? I don’t understand any of this. You drive here, crash into my hedge, destroy my post box, and then start asking me if there are any houses nearby, and keep saying that they are coming. You expect this to make any sense to me at all? Why do you want to know about whether there are any houses near here? And who are they?”

  “Oh... oh my God,” said Shaun, “he doesn’t know. Dave... this guy... he really doesn’t know...”

  And then, all of a sudden, Shaun was laughing. Wild, crazy laughter: he fell against the side of the car, creased double, helpless in his mirth, howling in demented hilarity.

  Dave gazed at Shaun for a moment, a somewhat disgusted expression on his face, not sharing the other man’s outburst of humour. Then he looked back at Ted.

  “Is this for real?” Dave asked, “you have no idea about what’s happened?”

  Ted shrugged, “no idea at all.”

  “You haven’t seen the TV? Been on the Net, listened to the radio?”

  Ted shrugged again, “don’t have them.”

  “Jesus...” said Dave, “don’t you even have a newspaper?”

  “No.”

  It seemed as though Dave was about to express yet more amazement at this, when Jenny suddenly said: “hey! Listen. I think they’re coming...”

  This statement stopped Dave dead in his tracks. It stopped Shaun too, his laughter ending so abruptly that it might have been cut off with a pair of scissors. Ted also paused to listen, head cocked, ears straining, trying to identify if there was any unusual sound emanating from the surrounding woods and fields and air: any sound that was stranger than the already strange sound – to him - of human speech and laughter.

  And then he did hear something. A noise: low, moaning, like the sound of the winter wind soughing through a dead forest. And again, he knew that this was the noise, the toll, the discordant note in the symphony of nature that he had heard - or rather felt – earlier. More so, even, than the sound of an approaching car engine had been: the car had merely been the herald. But this... this was the sound of wrong itself, an aberration in nature, a tone that hit the ear and tortured the soul like the knowledge of an atrocity. And the sound was becoming louder, the sound was approaching, and it was approaching along the main road.

  Suddenly, instinctively, Ted hurried forward, passing Dave and skirted around the smashed front end of the car.

  “Don’t go down there man,” Dave called after him, “please, it’s not safe. They’re coming!”

  Ignoring Dave, Ted passed the car, his boots gritting on smashed fragments of glass, and made his way down onto the main road. Once there, he paused, and gazed down the road in the direction from which the sound appeared to be coming.

  And he could barely believe what he was seeing.

  For there, perhaps half a mile down the road, was a crowd of people. A hundred, maybe more, clogged the road from one hedge to another. They were walking slowly, seemingly aimlessly, but approaching. At this distance, Dave couldn’t make out many details, but they seemed to be dressed in ragged clothes, and they seemed bedraggled, the worse for wear, as though they had suffered some great impoverishment, or as if they were escapees from some hospital or mental institute and could do nothing but wander aimlessly while their bodies fell into greater ruin. And yes... it was from this crowd of people that the sound was emanating, as though they were uttering a long, low moan, a kind of demented lament that went on and on like a remorseless winter wind.

  “Oh my God...”

  Ted glanced around, and there was Dave, standing at his side. A look of deepest terror had sunk into Dave’s face, the stench of fear coming off the man in waves.

  “They’re here...” said Dave, “we’ve got to go... Is there a house around here?”

  “Who...” Ted asked, and his voice sounded remote, dream like, “...who are they...?”

  “There’s no time to explain now. Is there a house around here...?”

  “Y – yes...” Ted began, hesitantly, unwillingly, “there’s mine... up on the hill...”

  “Then let’s go there... please, we haven’t got much time.”

  Ted paused. Did he really want to have these people in his house? No one had set foot inside his house for many years. No one. It would be an invasion, a sacrilege.

  “For God sake man!” Dave shouted, desperate, terrified, “...those people down there... if they catch us, they will kill us. All of us... please, we’ve all got to find shelter, now!”

  Ted looked back at the crowd of people. They were closer now. Had they speeded up a little? Had they perhaps spotted the four people stood around the shattered car? Yes, perhaps they had. And what Dave had said, about those people killing them... was that right? Ted ran his eyes across the advancing hoard. The ragged countenances, the pallid skin, and now that they were closer he could almost see their eyes, and see their blank stares. And was there a stench of death upon the air?

  A sour note in the symphony of nature... something missing, or something present that should not be there... the cold, approaching tread of death...

  “Please...!” Dave cried. The other two had gathered about them now as well, their faces sick with fear.

  Ted nodded. “Okay. My house is up on the hill. I’ll show the way.”

  And so they turned, and made their way around the ruin of the car. Ted paused for a moment while Dave, Shaun and Jenny hastily retrieved rucksacks from out of the ruins of the car and swung them onto their backs. Then they progressed onto the smaller lane beyond the main road. And then they ran.

  TWO

  The hill was a steep one, and it wasn’t long before Dave, Jenny and Shaun were panting for breath. Ted, who led the way, and was not the least bit out of breath, offered them a glance over his shoulder, and allowed himself a brief grin. Townies. Yep, definitely townies. Might do a bit of exercise running for the bus in the morning, or perhaps they took up membership of one of those trendy gyms until some other fad came along to capture their attention. But yes... townies for whom a short pull up a hill and a dose of country air was a major issue, God bless them.

  But his grin was short lived, because if this was a funny business, it was not funny in an amusing way. His instincts had not been wrong, and the tale that Nature had told him had not been wrong. Something was amiss, very amiss, and it had finally caught up with him – it had found him out. Despite all his years of running and of hiding, it had finally found him out.

  At last he gained the summit of the hill – Dave, Shaun and Jenny not too far behind – and Ted paused, placed his hands on his hips, and looked back. The path snaked off between the fields down toward the lane and, apart from Dave, Shaun, and Jenny, there was no one else upon it. That crowd of people down on the main road weren’t visible – though Ted thought that he could hear them, that low and horrible moaning pulsing through the air like an infection. And was it getting louder?

  Dave finally made it to the top of the hill. He paused for a moment, planting his hands on his knees and gasping for breath.

  “Better to put your hands on your head, lad,” said Ted, “get more air into your lungs that way.”

  Dave looked at him, clutched a few more gasps of air, and then said: “house... we’ve got to get into the house...” he gestured toward the farmhouse that loomed at the summit, “gotta get it secure... not much time...”

  Ted was about to have a bit more fun at Dave’s expense, but then he didn’t. Instead he nodded, turned, and led the way toward the farmyard gates. They progressed across the yard, Jenny, who was the last through the gate, closed
it and made sure it was secure. Then they followed Ted into the front hallway of the house, where they took off their rucksacks and deposited them on the floor.

  “Alright – lock the door,” said Dave as soon as they were all inside, and divested of their rucksacks.

  Ted nodded, twisted the key in the lock, and then threw the two bolts, top and bottom, for good measure.

  “Are there any other doors into the house?” asked Dave.

  “Just the back kitchen door,” Ted replied.

  “We need to close and lock it.”

  “It already is,” said Ted.

  “Need to double check,” Dave fired back, “which way is the kitchen?”

  Ted gestured at a door standing to the right of the hallway. Dave fled through it, the others following him in. Ted stepped through the door to find Dave busily jiggling the door handle of the kitchen door. Satisfied that it was locked, Dave stepped away from the door, and then cast wild glances around the kitchen, as though he expected someone to leap out of a corner and attack him.

  “Are there any other doors into the house?” Dave asked.

  “No,” said Ted, “just the front door and the kitchen door.”

  “You’re sure?” Dave demanded.

  “I know how many doors there are into my own house,” Ted fired back, irritated, suddenly wondering if offering this group sanctuary had been such a good idea after all.

  Dave nodded, “alright... I’m sorry, it’s just... I’ve got to be sure...”

  Again Dave gazed wildly around, as though expecting attack, as though trying to identify the weakest point and how to defend it.

  “Windows...” Dave said at last, “we’ve got to board up the windows... the ground floor windows at least...”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Ted, dismayed.

  “The windows, goddamn it - ,” Dave shouted, nearly hysterical, “it doesn’t even look like the glass is bloody double glazed. They’ll smash through that with no trouble at all. We’ve got to board the bloody windows up. This kitchen table’ll do.”

  Suddenly, Dave seized the large wooden table that stood in the middle of the kitchen. With sweating, red faced exertion, he tipped it over so that it was lying on its side. There were a couple of plates on the table’s surface, and they fell down and smashed on the tiled floor.

  “HEY!” Ted shouted, stepping forward with his hands balled into fists. He stopped short of physically attacking Dave, but his fury was almost uncontrollable, “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING??”

  Dave seemed not to notice the other man’s fury. Instead he looked up, wild eyed, “we need to get these legs chopped off,” he said, gesturing to the table legs, “you got an axe? A saw? We’ll need hammer and nails too!”

  “Hey Dave, just cool it, huh?” said Jenny, who had been watching Dave’s antics with a shocked and horrified expression on her face.

  “Yeah man,” said Shaun who was standing by the kitchen window, “cool it Dave. They’re not here yet anyway. They’re not even visible.”

  Dave squatted down next to the upended table. He raised his trembling hands and covered his head with them as though expecting a rain of blows. He took deep and shuddery breaths, trying to contain the fury of terror that, it would appear, was in motion within him. “Oh fuck...” Dave said with a weak and quivery voice, “...oh shit...”

  Ted turned from him, and made his way over to Shaun by the window. Ted peered through the window. There was the farmyard, the closed gate, the path, the fields, and the woods beyond. But there was no sign of those people who had been down on the main road, not hide nor hair of them. Though maybe... maybe he could hear them, that low moaning ululation... or maybe that was just the wind.

  Ted turned to Shaun, who was also peering through the window with eyes as big as poached eggs. “Alright my friend...” said Ted at last, “I’ve taken you into my house – against, I must confess, my better judgement – and I’ve offered you sanctuary. And all that I’ve got out of it so far is an overturned table and a couple of broken plates – not to mention a wrecked post box. So I think that its time you started making some sense. Its time you told me who you are, and why you drove a car into my post box, and who those people are down there on the road. I need to know once and for all what this is all about or I might just have to politely ask you to leave...”

  Slowly, Shaun turned his head and regarded Ted with those large, fear-shot eyes. Then, as though in disbelief, Shaun shook his head. “You don’t know do you...?” Shaun said at last, “...you really don’t know...?”

  “No, I don’t know. So tell me.”

  “Alright...” said Shaun slowly, wearily, like a man suspicious of having a joke played on him, “...okay... well... those people down on the road... they’re not really people... in fact, they’re not even alive...”

  Ted frowned, shook his head, “sorry, still not making sense.”

  “It all started about two weeks ago,” Shaun went on, “well, in our part of the world anyway. People started getting sick, some kind of virus, sort of like flu only a thousand times worse. The hospitals were packed out with them, people lying in corridors, on trolleys, in doorways. It was all over the television too. Do you really not have a television?”

  Ted shook his head, “no, I really don’t.”

  “How come?”

  “Never mind. Go on with your story.”

  “Alright. Well – uh – the virus, the epidemic, got worse and worse. People started dying, and there was nothing that the doctors could do about it. Dead bodies all over the place: in the hospitals, in houses, even, eventually, in the street. Towns became death traps. Hey – what about the local town? Dewsbury isn’t it? Haven’t you been there? Haven’t you seen what’s happening?”

  It was a fair point. Ted tried to recall the last time he’d been to Dewsbury. Then he remembered, and he shook his head, “no, last time I’ve been to town was near a month ago. Went on a food shopping trip. Stocked up. Everything was fine then.”

  “Christ,” said Jenny, who had joined them by the window, “you don’t get out much do you?”

  “No,” Ted replied, “I don’t. As little as I can. Anyway, on with your story, if there’s any more of it to tell.”

  “Oh yeah,” said Shaun, offering a ghastly grin, “there’s more alright. Much more. Because all those people who died... they didn’t just die. They...” Shaun faltered, swallowed hard, the sharp arrow of his Adam’s apple rising and falling in his throat. “They...” he tried again, but it was as though he couldn’t finish his sentence, couldn’t say what he had to say, what he should say.

  “...they came back to life...” Jenny finished for him at last, “they came back to life... and then they started eating people.”

  Ted looked at Jenny. Then he looked at Shaun. Then he looked back to Jenny again. And then he started to laugh. Slowly at first, hesitantly. But then the laughter mounted, rising in pitch and in hilarity until it was fairly echoing from the kitchen walls. It was like when he had first started talking to these people. His voice had sounded strange to his own ears, almost foreign. Now his laughter sounded even stranger, the yelp of some exotic bird that had migrated to this lonely farmhouse, and would sing its song for a while, and then be gone. He laughed so much that he almost creased double in the extremity. Oh my... oh dear... these young people, they did like their jokes, didn’t they? They must think him a right old fool if he couldn’t see a wind-up like this from a mile off. True it was that he didn’t get out much – but that didn’t mean that he had completely lost his marbles...

  But then the first paroxysm of the laughter passed, and he looked up at Jenny and Shaun, and he saw that they weren’t laughing. Their faces were sober, pale, completely unamused. Maybe they were still enacting the joke, playing it straight, corpsing as the professional comedians called it, (a grisly appropriate term), except... except there was still that look of terror, stained deep into every line, hollow and wrinkle of their faces. It was a loo
k that could not be faked. Reclusive and unworldly though he might be, Ted recognised that look. He knew it. Had he not seen it in his own face more times than he cared to remember?

  So his laughter died in his throat, the wild grin that had been upon his face wilted, and he drew in a deep and shuddery breath that had more of fear than humour in it.

  “...you’re not joking about this are you?” Ted asked at last.

  Both Shaun and Jenny shook their heads, “no... we’re not,” Shaun said, “what Jenny said is the truth. The people... they got sick with this flu thing, this virus... then they died... then they came back to life... and then they started to attack people. To... to bite them... eat them. Christ, it was horrible. Really, like something out of a horror film. A – a zombie film. Blood everywhere. Ripped up bodies...”

  Shaun’s face seemed to become even paler than it had been before. His Adam’s apple rose and fell frantically, and for a moment Ted thought that the young man was actually going to be sick all over the kitchen floor. But then the moment passed, Shaun put his hand to his mouth, and closed his eyes. A terrible expression of sorrow seemed to overspread his face as dreadful memories paraded through his mind.

  “But how?” asked Ted after a moment’s silence, “...how could such a thing ever be possible?”

  “I don’t think anyone ever knew for sure,” Jenny replied, “though there were many theories. The usual conspiracy theories: that it was some kind of government weapon – either biological or chemical – that had got out of control, or that it was some kind of experiment that had similarly got out of hand. The other theory was that it was merely some natural disease - a kind of ultra-aggressive flu – that had taken hold in the population. Certainly that was the line that the media on the television and elsewhere were peddling – until the broadcasts stopped.”

  “Broadcasts stopped?” asked Ted.

  “Oh yeah,” Jenny went on, “all the TV broadcasts stopped. The presenters and the cameramen got sick, just like everyone else was getting sick. The internet started to go down too after a few days. You’d log onto a news website – BBC, CNN, or whoever – and all you’d get is a “page cannot be displayed” message. Sometimes it was up again, just giving a simple, single message to stay indoors and not to panic or some such crap as that. Other times, and weirdly enough, you’d just get a weather report, or some half-baked story about someone’s cat stuck up a tree or something similar – as though they were desperate to maintain some sense of normality. But eventually the weather reports and the cat-up-a-tree stories disappeared, and then even the page-cannot-be-displayed messages disappeared, and there was just nothing. A blank white screen. Then even the electricity started to fail... But anyway, what I’m trying to say is that nobody knew where the virus came from, because nobody had time to know where it came from. It all happened too fast. Anyone who might have been able to figure it out died – and then were turned. And if you managed to escape it, like we did, then you just had to think about it and choose which conspiracy theory suited you the best – if you weren’t too busy trying to stay alive, that was.”