Zombie Survival: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller

by James King

  “And so how did you...?” Ted asked, “stay alive, I mean. How did you manage to avoid both the virus and being attacked by these – these things...?”

  “We were living in Birmingham when it all kicked off,” Jenny replied, “in a house... a squat, I suppose you’d call it. An old house that had been empty for years, that no one seemed particularly interested in, so in we moved. The only possession that we had between us was the car – the one that ploughed into your post box. Sorry about that. Anyway, we were there when it all kicked off, so we barricaded ourselves in the house. The only way you could catch the virus was through contact. The main contact, eventually, was through a... well... a bite...” Jenny visibly shuddered, “anyway, we were closeted in the house: not going out to work because we had no jobs to go to, and not going to the shops because we had a bit of food to survive on, and barely any money to buy any more with anyway. So we didn’t come into contact with anyone. And when they came... the dead people... the dead alive people... we just hunkered down, barricaded the house as best we could, and tried to wait it out. Except... well, it didn’t end. The nightmare. The horror. The attack. Sometimes they’d just wander aimlessly out there. Other times they’d come to the doors and windows, attacking, trying to get in, trying to kill us, eat us... just... a nightmare. A nightmare that was real, that you could never, ever wake up from. And then our food started to run out...”

  “Hey... hey guys...”

  This utterance had come from Dave. Ted, Jenny and Shaun glanced around at him. He was still squatting down by the upturned table. He had removed his hands from his head now, and was gazing up at them with reddened, frightened eyes. His pale, gaunt, stubble-shaded face was like a disturbing mask of fright.

  “Guys...” Dave said again, then closed his eyes, hung his head, and for a moment seemed to wrestle with something within him, perhaps the same crazed terror that had possessed him moments ago. Then he opened his eyes, and looked back up at them.

  “Guys... this is all very well and good, this little get-to-know-you session, but we really – and I mean really - need to board these windows up. Like now!”

  “They aren’t here yet,” said Shaun.

  Ted looked at Shaun whose bug eyes were gazing through the kitchen window. Then Ted himself looked through the window. Shaun was right: the farmyard and land beyond was still deserted.

  “They haven’t come,” Shaun went on, “maybe they didn’t come up here. Maybe they just passed by on the main road, and went off to where ever they were going.”

  “Yeah, maybe they did,” said Dave, “maybe they just passed by on the main road and went off to where ever they were going – maybe they all just decided to go off on a fucking Greek holiday –,”

  “Dave...” said Jenny, an admonishing note to her voice,

  “Or maybe they didn’t,” Dave went on, “maybe they’re on their way up here even as we speak. They don’t move fast, but they get where they’re going in the end, and they can smell live meat from a mile away - ,”

  “Fuck sake, Dave,” said Jenny, closing her eyes, shaking her head, and putting a hand to her mouth.

  “So we need to get these bloody ground floor windows boarded up. And we need. To do it. NOW!”

  “He’s right,” said Shaun. Ted glanced around at the other man, and saw his bug eyes gazing directly toward him, “I’m sorry mister... hey – what’s your name?”

  “Ted,” he replied, with an impatient shrug of the shoulders.

  “Alright – Ted. I’m Shaun, she’s Jenny, and he’s Dave.”

  “Yes I know.”

  “Oh – uh - alright. But like I said – he’s right, Dave is. We’ve got to get the windows boarded up. Sorry Ted, I know it’s screwed up, but we’ve got to do it. Like Dave said earlier, the glass in those windows are single-glazed. They’ll break through them as easy as if they were tissue paper.”

  “And boards nailed across the window are going to stop them?” Ted asked.

  Shaun shrugged uneasily, “it’s better than nothing.”

  “Come on,” said Dave, “we’ve gotta get these legs chopped off this table. You got an axe or a saw or something? We’ll need hammer and nails too. Well?”

  “Yes, I’ve got all of those things. They’re out in one of the sheds.”

  “Out in the sheds?” Dave sprang up from his squatting position, suddenly, urgently, “shit, we better go and get them quick then. Before they get here.”

  Dave hurried across to where the others were standing by the window and peered out. Ted peered out as well.

  And saw a single figure.

  It was standing just behind the gate into farmyard. Fortunately Jenny had closed the gate after she had passed through it, and that was providing something of a barrier. For now. The figure tottered, lurched, cocked its head to one side as though harkening to some obscure sound. And Ted himself realised that he could hear a sound too – a low and persistent moaning. And now, he could no longer convince himself that it was just the wind blowing through the trees, or soughing around the corners of the house.

  “Fuck it – they’re here!” Shaun hissed.

  “Only one,” said Dave.

  “When one comes others will follow,” said Jenny.

  “True,” Dave replied, “that’s why we’ve got to move fast.”

  “You’re going out there?” asked Shaun, incredulous, “to the sheds? With that thing out there?”

  “We have to; to get the tools we need,” Dave replied sharply, “unless there are any in the house...?”

  He looked around at Ted, a hopeful expression on his face. But Ted had to disappoint him.

  “Sorry, no. I keep all the tools in the shed. Axe, saw, hammer nails...”

  Dave gritted his teeth, shook his head, disappointment writ large upon him, “that’s it then. We’ll have to go out.”

  “Jesus Christ, Dave...” Jenny began.

  Ignoring her, Dave turned to Ted, “which shed is it? If you don’t want to go outside that’s fine, just point me in the right direction.”

  “No, it’s okay, I’ll come,” Ted replied, “it’ll be quicker that way.”

  Dave nodded, “alright, come on then, let’s get on with it.”

  Dave turned from the window and hurried toward the door, Ted following on behind.

  “What about me and Jenny?” Shaun called after them.

  “Stay there,” Dave called back over his shoulder, “no sense in us all getting killed.”

  Ted hurried down the hall to where Dave had shot the two bolts back, and was already struggling with the key. Gently, Ted pushed Dave out of the way, took hold of the key, and turned.

  “Bit of a knack to it,” said Ted, and offered a wry smile that he was amazed he was able to muster under the circumstances. Maybe he hadn’t lost all of his old vim after all...

  And then he pushed the door open, and he and Dave stepped out onto the farmyard to find the shed and the tools. And whatever else might lurk beyond.

  THREE

  As soon as the two men stepped out onto the farmyard, the thing that stood at the gate noticed them. Ted experienced a chill go through him as those dead but strangely hungry eyes regarded him. If he’d had doubts about the story that Shaun and Jenny had told him – and to be honest, he’d more than a few – then he felt them begin to melt away in that moment.

  The thing cocked its head, its mouth sagged open, and a runner of spittle drooled down onto the front of its filthy shirt. It offered a protracted, senile moan, and then began to grope at the farmyard gate. Clearly it wanted to get over to the two men, but it didn’t seem to know how to open the gate, or even climb over it. Instead, it merely floundered and groped against the metal struts of the barrier, its claw-like hands grasping outward and clutching at the air before it.

  “Come on,” said Dave, “let’s get these tools and then get the hell back inside the house.”

  Ted nodded, and then made his way hastily across to one of the nearest sheds. He produced a
bunch of keys from his pocket, unlocked the padlock from the shed, pulled the door open, and then stepped into the oily-smelling shadows.

  “So what we after then?” asked Ted, peering around the interior of the shed, and waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

  “Axe, saw, hammer and nails,” Dave said, pausing next to Ted as he waited for his eyes to adjust, “plenty of nails, as many as you’ve got. Can’t think of anything else right now, there’ll probably be something we think of when we’re back in the house and it’s too late to do anything about it – but those are the main things at the moment. So come on, where are they?”

  Before Ted could even utter a word, Dave fled deeper into the shed and started peering along the walls and into cupboards, desperately seeking the tools, his movements fervent, almost manic.

  “Not over there,” said Ted, “over here.”

  He stepped across to the opposite side of the shed from the one that Dave had been hunting along, and lifted an axe down from its mount on the wall.

  “Here, take this,” said Ted.

  Dave eagerly grabbed the tool off Ted. He hefted it before him for a moment, as though it were a weapon that would fell an enemy rather than a tool that was going to hack off table legs. Ted lifted a saw down from its mount next to the axe, picked a hammer up from the nearby workbench and slotted it in his pocket. Then he hunted further along the workbench until he located the box of nails. He shook it, and it sounded full enough.

  “How big are those nails?” Dave asked, “they’ll need to be long ones...”

  “They’re as long as they are,” Ted replied, “and they’re all that we’ve got. Unless you fancy a walk to the nearest hardware store.”

  “Alright,” said Dave, “come on, let’s get out of here.”

  They hurried across the interior of the shed, and then stepped through the doorway out onto the farmyard beyond. Ted had fully intended to close the shed door and lock it behind him – but he didn’t. Because what he saw when he stepped out of the shed caused all such thoughts of propriety to leave his head.

  The thing that had been behind the gate was no longer behind the gate. It had made its way over the gate – a smear of foulness on the rungs marked its passage – and was now staggering around in the very centre of the farmyard. And it was right between them and the front door of the farmhouse.

  “Oh shit...” Dave hissed. He brought the axe up before him, and again hefted it, although now that there was a potential enemy in front of him, he seemed less assured.

  Potential. Yes... thought Ted... a potential enemy. After all, he was only taking these people’s word for it that this person in the farmyard, and those others he’d seen down on the road, were in any way harmful. Maybe they weren’t. Maybe Dave, Shaun, and Jenny had somehow misjudged these affected people, and they were no real threat. Or maybe Dave and co had merely sold him a crock of shit – maybe just so they could get into his house and squat there just as they had done with that other house in Birmingham – and they knew full well that there was nothing dangerous about these people. Dave certainly seemed desperate enough to board up the windows, but maybe that had just been all part of the ruse.

  But then again... that things gaze... the way it seemed hungry... the way that he had felt his blood run cold as soon as its eyes had fallen upon him...

  Ted licked his lips, a horrible moment of indecision working its way through him. But it lasted less than a second. Okay, maybe this tottering, staggering figure was dangerous – but he needed to know for sure. He needed to see it for himself. Certainly he needed to know before he offered it any violence.

  Either the figure in the middle of the farmyard hadn’t seen them yet, or if it had then it had no interest in them. It merely stood there, staggering, tottering, lurching this way and that, its head held at an extreme angle as though its neck had been broken, and emitting that awful never-ending moan.

  Cautiously, Ted stepped forward. “Hello...” he began, “we don’t mean you any harm...”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake...” Dave groaned behind him, a note of despair within his voice.

  Suddenly, with a sharp and aggressive action, the thing lurched around. It turned to face the two men, and now Ted got a good close-quarters view of its eyes. Pale, filmy, as though they were covered with cataracts: but still seeming to somehow focus upon the two men. Its lips peeled back from long decayed teeth, and it snarled from deep back within its throat.

  “Oh, fucking well done man,” said Dave, “now we’ve lost any element of surprise that we might have had.”

  “Please...” said Ted, addressing the figure, “we really don’t mean - ,”

  But then, before Ted could utter another word, two things happened. Firstly, with a snarl, the figure lurched toward Ted, its hands stretched out into claws, its teeth revealed, saliva drooling between the exposed tusks. In that moment, Ted knew – this thing was aggressive. It wanted to attack him, kill him, he could see that in its every movement, it’s every sound, the rage-filled contortion of its face, the empty hunger in its eyes. Ted brandished the saw, and reached toward the hammer in his pocket, ready to defend himself if need be – and it would be needed. He knew an enemy when he saw one.

  But before he could so much as wrestle the hammer out of his pocket, the second thing happened. Dave raced forward, roaring, the axe held high above his head. Ted had time to see the implement reached high into the air, the sun glinting off the polished metal of its head. Then Dave brought the axe down in a vicious, swinging arc, and the axe crashed down straight into the forehead of the creature.

  Blood exploded outward as the bone of the skull was caved inward. But it was wrong blood, strange blood: black, rotting, stinking, and noxious. Ted had seen blood spilled on enough occasions, and it had never looked like this. Clearly they had been right enough about a disease, some kind of plague affecting these people. That foul blood was evidence enough of a horrendous infection.

  With a roar of triumph and of horror, Dave pulled the axe out of the figure’s head. It came with a sickening crunch of bone, and more black blood spurted out of the ruptured skull. Brain too – or at least what Ted presumed to be brain: a kind of thick, stinking green porridge that slopped and burbled out of the burst cranium. Its jaw hanging, its bloody eyes wide, the thing fell to its knees. Then, with another vast swing, Dave attacked it again with the axe. This time it was a sideways blow, aimed at the left side of the creature’s neck. The axe bit through the soft and pulpy, (dead), flesh of the neck, and yet more black blood burst outward. Then, the neck was nothing more than a spurting stump, while the head rolled away to the side of the farmyard, slowly and lazily, like a football that had been kicked by a bored child.

  Dave dropped the axe, dropped to his knees, bent double and, emitting a huge hacking retch, he vomited onto the yard’s concrete surface.

  Ted turned away, not because he was particularly sickened himself, but to give the man privacy in his moment of weakness. And suddenly, still buried but not dead, memories stirred within Ted. Memories long repressed, but not gone, and now remembered: because this was enough to remind him. It was always the same. The first contact with extreme violence was never what you thought it would be. When you had the axe in your hand, it felt good; you hefted it before you and felt that you had power over your enemies. But when the axe had been used – the first time that it had been used anyway – it didn’t feel so good. No, it didn’t feel good at all. It left you crouching on the ground, barking up your breakfast, the full enormity crashing into you until you learned to cope, or at least to accept. And here the memories were, coming in at him as fast as an express train: a bitter windswept terrain of rough grasses surrounding him, a vicious cold wind cutting through him, and a foreign sky above. There was a heavy pack on his back, and something in his hands that was just as heavy, and it hadn’t been an axe. No, it had been something infinitely deadlier. It had been –

  “Ted... hey Ted...!”

  Somebody sho
ok him. Ted glanced around, startled, like a man awakening from a deep and troubled dream. He glanced around at whoever was shouting at and shaking him, and saw Dave’s face. It was pallid and sickened, and had dark rings around the eyes, but otherwise seemed okay.

  “You okay man...?” Dave asked.

  Ted nodded, “yes... yes, I’m okay.”

  Dave nodded, “alright. Thought I’d lost you there for a moment. You kind of went glazed, dead. Thought you were having a bloody heart attack or a stroke or something...”

  Ted offered a smile that felt dead on his face, “...no, nothing like that. I’m okay just a little...” he trailed off.

  “Yeah, I know. Violence is always hard to take the first time you meet it.”

  Oh Dave... oh my dear young man... if you only knew...

  “Come on,” said Dave, “we’ve got to get back into the house. There aren’t any others yet,” his frightened eyes scanned the scene, “...but that doesn’t mean that there won’t be any soon. And we’ve still got some serious work to do. Come on!”