Ghostland_A Zombie apocalypse Novel

by Shaun Whittington

  “I just know, okay?”

  Simon thought it was easier, mentally, to assume that everybody he knew had died. He didn’t want to have false hope, to be travelling to places where relatives once lived, only to be hit with disappointment. Assuming that everyone was gone allowed Simon to solely concentrate on looking after his little girl.

  “Daddy, look,” she shrieked.

  Simon had been walking with his head in the clouds, thinking about yesteryear, and had a fright when Imelda squealed.

  He looked in the direction she was pointing, and a wide smile emerged on his features. Three hundred yards in front of them was a pond, behind the pond looked like the start of a forest.

  “Thank the Lord,” Simon said with a smile. “Water.”

  Chapter Nine

  “How long is this going to take?” Imelda moaned once they reached the pond. “My legs are tired.”

  “It’s just a simple matter of dipping the bucket into the pond and walking back to the house,” Simon huffed. “I’ll probably spill some on the way back. Water can be quite heavy, you know. Especially when you’ve got half a mile or so to walk.”

  Imelda turned to face away from her father whilst he dipped the bucket into the clear pond. In the days when he first started doing this, he was paranoid if water had been infected in some way, but it was either this or nothing. He and his daughter hadn’t been ill so far, thankfully. He knew that other lakes, ponds that were situated in cities were probably in a terrible state, but the area he was in and the area where he lived wasn’t directly hit. Buildings were still standing and the trees had leaves on them. In some ways they had been lucky, but most days they didn’t feel lucky.

  “Okay,” said Simon to his daughter. “That’s me finished. Time to go back.”

  “Hey!”

  Both Simon and Imelda turned when they heard the stranger’s voice call out to them.

  A man stepped out of the woods that were situated behind the pond and began waving at the two of them. He walked around the pond and Simon was in two minds what to do. Should he see what the man wanted or ignore him and make his way back to the farm? At first he thought the voice belonged to Dicko, but this was a different guy. This individual had long grey hair, tied in a ponytail, and looked to be in his fifties.

  “Where are you staying?” the stranger asked as he reached the pair of them.

  “A farm,” Imelda blurted out.

  “Babe, be quiet,” Simon snapped.

  “I think I know which one you’re talking about.” The man revealed a wide grin, revealing his decayed teeth, unnerving Simon.

  “Anyway, we’re going now,” said Simon and held up his hand. “See you later, mate.”

  He grabbed Imelda by the wrist, picked up the bucket and walked away from the pond.

  “Hey!” the man yelled. “Where’re you going?”

  “We need to get going.” Simon could feel his heart beating out of his chest and took a quick look over his shoulder, seeing if the man was following the pair of them.

  He was.

  “For God’s sake,” Simon muttered under his breath.

  Imelda had now looked over her shoulder and cried, “Daddy. That scary man is following us.”

  Simon stayed quiet and was unsure what to do. He stopped holding hands with Imelda and put his now-free hand in his pocket and felt for the handle of the knife. He took another look behind him and saw that the man was following them with quick steps and was only twenty yards or so away.

  “Stay away!” Simon turned around and yelled, his heart almost beating out of his chest. “I’m warning you!”

  “You’re gonna be needing a lodger at that farm,” the man laughed. “I’ve got a feeling it’s a big one, plenty of room!”

  “Daddy, I’m sorry I told him we were at a farm,” Imelda said with tears in her eyes. “I wasn’t thinking. I...”

  “Don’t worry about it, babe,” said Simon, taking another look over his shoulder, noticing that the man was getting nearer. “It’s not your fault.”

  “Daddy, I’m scared.”

  Me too.

  Simon could now see the farm up ahead in the distance and guessed that it would take possibly ten to fifteen minutes to get there. But they had a problem behind them that needed taking care of. He took a long breath in and placed the yellow bucket of water on the grass.

  He turned to Imelda and said, “Keep walking and don’t look back.”

  “But, daddy—”

  “Just do it!” he snapped.

  She did as she was told and Simon turned around to face the annoying stranger. Simon pulled out the knife and hid both his arms around his back.

  “Leave us alone!” he said with a snarl in his voice.

  “No chance,” the man snickered. “That farm can house more than two people, and I bet you got food in there, haven’t you?”

  “Just fuck off!”

  Simon was frightened, but told himself that if the stranger with the grey ponytail approached near enough, he was going to attack him. Was this it? Was this going to be the first person that Simon was going to kill? But what if he was the one that was killed? Imelda would be all on her own; left alone with this strange man. Perish the thought.

  He wasn’t going to come out of this situation second best; he couldn’t. He had Imelda to think of. He then wondered if the man was carrying a weapon. If he was, why hadn’t he pulled the thing out yet?

  “I’m warning you,” Simon snarled but could feel his face shake. “Stay away!”

  “Warning me?” the stranger cackled at the shaking Simon. “Look at the state of you. You’re shitting yourself.”

  Simon gulped and said, “Go away, please.”

  “Go away, please?” the man mocked and lunged at Simon. Simon closed his eyes and lashed out with the blade. The man with the grey ponytail fell to the floor, screaming and holding his bleeding face.

  Simon stood in shock and looked down on the man. He was holding his face, his hand covered in crimson, and was writhing around on the floor like a snake on fire.

  “Cunt!” the man screamed. “You fucking cunt! You’re gonna pay for this. You hear me? You’re gonna fucking pay!”

  Simon didn’t hang around for long and ran away.

  Imelda turned around, but told her to face the front and keep walking. He had caught up with her and put his stained knife back into the pocket of his black combats and picked up the bucket.

  “Was that a bad man?” Imelda asked.

  Simon sighed, his heart still beating out of his chest. “I’m not too sure he’s bad ... exactly. He’s just...”

  “What?”

  “Desperate. Remember what I told you before?”

  Imelda nodded slowly, but it was clear that she had no idea what her father was talking about. It was clear on her face.

  “People aren’t the same anymore,” he tried to explain whilst constantly looking over his shoulder, making sure the now injured man was not following them. “Some of these people could have been lawyers, teachers. They could have been people that we passed in the town or street, but ... they’ve changed. They’re doing what they’re doing to survive.”

  “Will that man come looking for us?” Imelda cried. “He now knows where we stay.”

  “He’ll be too scared to come to the farm.”

  “Are you sure, daddy?”

  “Of course.” Simon nodded.

  He wasn’t sure. I fucking hope so.

  Chapter Ten

  Hours had passed since the frightening incident at the pond, and Imelda had spent her time at the kitchen table, drawing with a pencil and paper that Simon had found in a cupboard. Both were still affected by what had happened at the pond, but neither spoke about it any further.

  Simon had been outside boiling water on a fire he had made, whilst Imelda was preoccupied drawing. Two jars had been filled, whilst the rest of the water in the bucket was placed on top of the sink for another day. It was a matter of waiting for the water to
cool down before they could drink the stuff. Simon had promised Imelda that he would put some cordial in hers. She hadn’t been to the toilet in days and he was growing concerned for her and her constipation.

  Simon could see Imelda was still drawing and went over to her. He stood behind her and kissed her on the top of her head. He gave her hair a little sniff and decided that the next time they went to the pond he was going to wash her hair with one of the soap bars he had in his rucksack.

  He peered over her shoulder and could see that she had drawn four people and a car. The four people were obviously Tyler, Diana, himself and Imelda. There was Imelda and her dad on one side of the car, the dead on the other side, and her mummy and brother were up in the clouds.

  “Why have you put mummy and Tyler up in the clouds?” Simon asked her.

  She stopped drawing and pointed at the picture. “That’s Tyler and mummy in heaven.”

  Simon gulped and took a step back. He could feel his throat harden and felt for his little girl. She stood up from the table and told her dad that she was tired and needed a lie down.

  “Don’t you want something to eat?”

  She shook her head. “Just a sleep. That’s all I need.”

  “Fancy a snuggle on the sofa? Me and you?”

  She gave her father a rare smile and nodded. With their shoes still on, they headed for the couch. Simon lay on the couch and Imelda lay next to him; she put her arm across his chest and lay her head on it, closing her eyes.

  Simon stroked his daughter’s hair and kissed her gently on her clammy head and asked her, “You sleepy, babe?”

  She nodded once.

  He kissed her head again and stroked her hair like he used to on an evening when the world was normal, when Simon had a job, and Imelda had a school to go to the next day.

  Back in the old world, after reading her school book with her, Imelda would sometimes ask Simon if he could stay for ten minutes and give her cuddles. Most days he would say yes.

  “I was thinking about when we were all together,” she began, then followed the sentence with a moan.

  “Oh?”

  “I was thinking about when we went to the circus. Do you remember?”

  Simon smiled and said, “Yes, I remember.”

  Simon almost laughed when a flashback of a conversation between him and Tyler entered his head. Both father and son had the conversation whilst the place was filling up with people, before the first act.

  Tyler was going through a horror movie phase and liked to draw vampires and werewolves. Simon had been the same when he was that age.

  In the circus, Tyler had asked Simon, “Dad will there be any animals in the show?”

  Simon replied, “Yes, of course.”

  “What about jugglers?”

  “Yes, there should be jugglers as well.”

  “What about clowns?” his son asked him.

  “I think there’s one clown in this show.”

  Tyler then paused for thought and finally asked, “Will he be carrying an axe?”

  Simon found the scene just as comical looking back as when it first happened a couple of years ago. There were many other stories, but that was his favourite.

  When Simon’s mum and step-dad visited them, Simon’s mum told Tyler that her mum had passed away. Tyler then asked his grandma if she had been killed by a big lorry, causing Simon and his mum to burst into fits of laughter. When they first bought their guinea pigs, Alvin and Ham Sandwich, Tyler told Diana, his mother, that when they die he would like to give them a kiss.

  The final one that Simon could remember was when their goldfish Bruce had passed away, floating lifelessly in the tank. Before Diana put it into the toilet and flushed it away, Tyler asked if he could ‘have a go’ at stabbing it.

  Simon began to chuckle quietly, forcing tears to run down his face.

  He then turned to the side and could see his daughter sleeping. The man by the pond then plagued his thoughts and he lost his smile. Simon slowly got up and tried his best not to disturb his daughter. He grabbed his coat that was hanging over the armchair, and placed it over her. He walked out of the living room and into the kitchen, looking over to the door to double check that it was bolted. He took a swig of warm water from the jar and glared out of the kitchen window, which was the same direction where the pond was. He wondered if the man dared to show his face again.

  Simon never meant to harm him like that, and hoped it had frightened him enough not to seek them out. The stranger knew where the farm was, but Simon was hoping that the altercation earlier was enough to scare him off. Or would he be seeking revenge?

  His mind was beginning to conjure up all kinds of scenarios that probably would never occur. What if the stranger decided to turn up during the night, whilst they slept?

  Simon walked around the ground floor of the house, made sure the doors were all locked again, and went upstairs to check the bedrooms. He was sure that everything was fine, but thinking about the incident at the pond had fuelled his paranoia.

  Once he checked the first floor, he made the slow descent back downstairs and sat in the armchair, hoping to get forty winks. He wanted to sleep for an hour or so, just in case the man by the pond did turn up during the night. He was certain that if he did fall asleep during the night and someone tried to get in, he would wake up, but he wanted to try and stay awake for one night, just this once.

  He leaned his head back on the chair and closed his eyes. He began to think about Diana and Tyler.

  Twenty-one minutes later, Simon had fallen asleep and began to dream about Diana and Tyler, but it wasn’t a nice dream.

  *

  Simon’s dream felt more like a flashback. It was a horrific flashback. It was an incident that he would never forget to his dying day, and neither would poor Imelda.

  A gang of individuals had raided their home and Simon and Diana had decided that it was for the best to flee their place and go north, somewhere where it was safer.

  Simon went outside and stared at the carnage in his barren and lifeless street and put on his car tyres, trying to ignore the smell of death in the air. Once the tyres were on and the petrol was put back into the vehicle, they were ready to go.

  He reversed out of his drive and left the street, telling Tyler and Imelda to close their eyes. Dead bodies and body parts were present and Simon guessed correctly that these bodies had been there since the early days, before Stage Two. He had no idea how long it had been since the Canavars arrived, but he guessed that it had only been a month or so since the bombs had stopped. He drove along the desolate road and gazed up at the murky skies. The sky looked different, unusual ... polluted.

  The plan was to hit the motorway and head north, but they had only been on the road a matter of minutes when a Canavar shambled out into the road. Simon hadn’t seen the thing in time and hit the creature. Diana, Tyler and Imelda screamed, Simon lost control of the car and veered off the road, the car crashing into a hedge. The car had stalled and Simon desperately tried to start the car. That was when he woke up in the armchair and could feel a pain in his finger.

  He quickly sat up, and realised he had fallen asleep with his knife sitting on his lap and had pricked his finger, which was why his dream had been cut short.

  He looked over to see that Imelda was still sleeping and then thought about the rhyme/song that Tyler had made up to tease Imelda with. Even in dark times, his son still managed to conjure up a rhyme, which highlighted to Simon that his son wasn’t frightened when the early days of Stage One were in progress. Tyler hardly showed signs of anxiety when it was happening. Yes, he missed his friends, but he saw it as a big adventure. He couldn’t go back to school, he had to stay indoors, and he spent a lot of time watching out of his bedroom window in morbid fascination. It didn’t seem to bother him as much when the power went, which was a surprise to his parents, as he loved playing on his phone.

  Apart from peeping out of his window and teasing his little sister, Tyler spent his time
at the dining table with paper and pencils. He drew pictures and made up some stories and incorporated some rather gruesome pictures to accompany the words he had written. He also made up comics and spent hours thinking up dialogue and colouring in the pictures. The one that Simon remembered was one called Tragedy. It was clearly a rip off from Jaws, a film that Tyler had secretly watched in his room. His story was nearly fifty pages long, something that impressed Simon, and was about a Hammerhead shark terrorising holidaymakers in Jamaica. He was impressed that his young son had written something like this, however, was slightly disturbed that the content was rather bloody.

  Simon raised a smile when looking back. He remembered some of the sentences as he had read the book a couple of times out of sheer boredom. Tyler would spell picture as picher, Saturday as Saterday and library as lybrarie.

  Simon then heard his little boy’s voice scream inside his head “Daddy, don’t leave me!”

  Simon would never forget those words. Ever.

  It was the last words his son had said to him, and the heartbreaking thing about it was that the words were coated with fear.

  He took another look at his bleeding finger and began to suck the blood. He stood to his feet and began to walk around the house again, stretching his legs.

  Simon decided to abolish the idea of staying awake through the night. He was a light sleeper anyway, and thought that it wouldn’t be good for him, mentally, to try such a thing.

  Tonight, he was going to sleep downstairs.

  Chapter Eleven

  Simon had been pacing the floor for the last fifteen minutes. Adrenaline coursed through his veins and he couldn’t stop thinking about the man by the pond. He looked over at Imelda and decided to wake her. If she slept any longer, she would struggle to sleep on a night.

  He went over to the sofa and crouched down. He began to gently shake his little girl and she began to stir and mumbled, “I don’t want to go swimming, mummy.”

  Simon could feel his eyes filling when she said this, and he wondered if he had disturbed a pleasant dream that Imelda was having. Her blue eyes opened and gave her daddy a thin smile, the same way she would when trying to hide disappointment.