by Luke Duffy
Helen took his vital signs, feeling for his pulse and listening to his breathing. “I don’t think he will hang on much longer,” she said gravely, shaking her head as she stood.
He was ghastly pale and gaunt. His features had withered as though he were already dead. His sunken eyes were rolled into the back of his head and he struggled to breathe. His entire body was soaked with sweat and as he was unable to take in more fluids to replace what he was losing, his body began to dehydrate and shrink to nothing.
Claire approached, pushing her way to the front of the gaggle that had formed around the mattress. “Leave us. I’ll deal with it from here. I’ll wait with him. I owe him that much.”
Steve looked down and saw that she was carrying a pick axe. “Claire, are you sure?”
She nodded. “Just leave please.” She looked around at their faces, pleading, with tears in her eyes.
They left the room and went back into the main part of the house.
Steve went to see Sarah. She was still weak, but the colour had started to return to her cheeks. Jennifer sat beside her as she slept.
“She is gonna be okay, Steve,” she said to him as he took up position on the other side of her.
“Looks that way don’t it? Jesus, I was so worried.”
“Is Claire with Roy?” Jennifer asked. She lowered her voice as she spoke, more from respect than to keep it a secret.
“Yeah,” he nodded, staring down at the blankets on the bed. “She insisted and wanted us all to leave.”
She blew out a long, loud breath. “God, that can’t be an easy thing to do. Understatement I know.”
“Yeah, she's a strong woman and has always been independent when it comes to making difficult choices.”
Sensing that Steve wasn't comfortable to go on speaking about what needed to be done for Roy and the decision that Claire had made, Jennifer changed the subject.
“I don’t think Marcus is gonna be too impressed about his baby,” she said.
Steve looked at her and then realised what she had meant. “Oh, you mean the Range Rover? Yeah, I think I'm gonna have to come up with a good story on that one aren’t I?”
“Nah,” she smiled as she shrugged. “It was used to save us all and besides, he can have his pick of cars when he gets here.”
It had been hours since Claire entered the room and stayed with Roy. Steve and Helen had remained in the lobby, the door leading into the storeroom just in view down a small corridor that led away to the back of the house.
They watched the door, waiting for Claire to emerge.
It had been almost twelve hours when the door finally opened. Claire appeared, she staggered, clutching the door frame and then she slowly and unsteadily made her way toward the sitting area.
Steve watched as she approached, casting nervous glances at Helen, who returned the same expression. Claire came closer and stopped. She raised her head and looked at them both in turn before closing her eyes tightly.
Finally, she nodded. “It’s done.”
She slumped into one of the large antique leather armchairs and reached for the crystal canter in the centre of the low table in front of her. She flipped off the top and poured herself a generous helping of brandy into a glass tumbler. She raised the glass to her lips and threw her head back, swallowing the contents of the glass in one gulp before pouring another.
Steve and Helen sat in silence and let her get on with it. They refrained from asking the usual stupid questions such as ‘Are you okay?’
Those very same questions, though meant well, always annoyed him.
Of course she isn’t okay, she just slammed a pick axe through her boyfriend’s head, Steve thought to himself.
Later, Steve helped Jake and Lee to move the body when Claire had gone to clean up and sleep off the six large glasses of brandy.
She had done a clean job of dealing with Roy. There had been no unnecessary suffering. It had been quick and Roy would’ve felt nothing. Steve wondered whether the dead felt pain at all.
She hadn't panicked and missed or hit with a glancing blow. There had been one swing and it had punched clean through the centre of his head, the point of the pick sticking into the wooden floor boards underneath with very little blood or splatter.
Steve didn't know whether or not Claire had waited for him to reanimate or if she had taken care of him as soon as he had died. He didn't need to know; it was done and nothing more needed to be said.
They wrapped him in sheets and carried his body into the garden, to a grave they had already prepared earlier in the day, and gently placed him in it. They left it open in case Claire wanted to see him one last time and say anything over him before the hole was filled in.
Steve thought it was only right that he should be buried with a degree of respect given the chance. He would want that for himself and he would see to it that others had the same treatment if it came to it.
He couldn't help but think of Kevin. He hadn't been buried, or taken care of when he died.
23
He felt powerful and strong.
It was a whole new experience to him. All his life he had fantasised about being the dominant male among his peers, but he could never live up to it. Instead, he spent his lonely evenings acting out his daydreams in front of a mirror; arguing with himself and being assertive and standing up to the people he had always been trodden down by as he imagined them standing before him.
Now, he was probably the only remaining survivor of his colleagues. He was sure that they would all be dead by now. If they hadn't died on the night of the riot that had swallowed most of his workmates up, then surely they must have died since. They would’ve been too busy trying to look after family and friends and with people to look out for; it increased the chances of getting killed.
Tony had neither. It was just him and he had the world at his feet now. There was no one to tell him what was right or wrong anymore. He didn't have to pretend to be like everybody else. He could indulge himself and be who he really was without hiding behind the uniform and using his position of power to elevate him above the poor excuse of a man he really was.
He was now the almighty and powerful and he thrived on the feeling.
For weeks he had moved about the city and outlying towns, helping himself to whatever he wanted and doing as he pleased. He had free reign and he had shrugged off the shackles of ethics and what society had deemed as moral conduct.
He broke into houses and businesses and took what he pleased. He always secretly hoped to find survivors. People who were weak and easily manipulated that he could then mold to adore and revere him.
More often than not, the houses would be empty and abandoned. He had developed the habit of sifting through family photographs, looking for pretty women or young girls, then he would head upstairs and find their room and begin sifting through their drawers and laundry baskets, masturbating as he wore their underwear over his face. He would become completely lost in himself and without realising it, he would be howling as he reached his climax.
Tony had pushed the boundaries one day, even for his own warped mind. He broke into a house and found the owner to still be inside, dead of course. At first he had considered making a sharp exit, but decided against it.
“Hello gorgeous,” he slurred as he eyed the walking corpse that had once been a pretty female.
Even in death, it was obvious that she had been extremely attractive in life. Now though, her skin had a yellow hue and looked clammy. Her eyes were lifeless and misted, and her swollen tongue flopped from her lips as she snarled and lunged toward him. He punched and kicked the body to the ground and proceeded to subdue and tie her up.
“Time for a bit of fun for you and me darling and, of course, I’ll still respect you in the morning.”
He stripped her and wore her soiled underwear over his face as he spent the entire evening drinking and masturbating over her decaying body as she squirmed and writhed beneath him. He imagined her struggles to be t
hat of orgasmic ecstasy from his prowess and skill in the bedroom.
What very few morals he had had before the rising of the dead, they were long since gone now. There was nothing and no one to tell him what was socially acceptable anymore. Before the world crumbled, there had been the police uniform and other people and television to steer him right. Now, all that was gone and the restraints of civilisation were broken and he had no intention of ever allowing himself to be shackled by them again.
He drank a lot. There wasn't a day that went by when he wouldn't be driving around with a bottle of vodka or whisky in his lap, continually swigging from it until he was blind drunk. One time, he had pulled over to sleep it off and hours later he awoke to find himself surrounded by the faces of the dead, packed tightly together and banging against the windows and rocking the car as he slumbered.
Sometimes, when he became bored, he would taunt the dead and lure them into areas of his choosing where he would trap them and take his frustrations out on them. His weak past still haunted him from time to time and he would need to replenish his depleting dominance by doing something brave and daring.
In reality, there was nothing brave or daring about his actions. He always made sure that he was well protected and all possibilities were covered. He left nothing to chance and avoided any situation that even remotely held a risk of him being hurt.
One of his favourite pastimes was to dress in full bike leathers with helmet and gloves and trap two, sometimes three of the infected in a large room, normally a warehouse on the outskirts of town and then, fight them as though he were a gladiator in the arena, raising his arms in triumph to his imaginary audience as he pulled off a particular feat or a killer blow that he thought worthy of applause.
He collected an assortment of weapons, from steel bars and tools like large spanners and wrenches, to a cheap copy Samurai sword that he had found in a shop window. One of his favourite weapons was his homemade mace. It had originally been a small baseball type bat, and he hammered long nails in to it, creating a ring of spikes around the head of it that he would smash into the bodies and faces of his opponents.
He would play with them at first, crippling them as they charged him and smashing their legs to a pulp with blow after blow with one of his weapons. Normally, the coup de grace would be given after he had paraded around the arena, waving his arms and standing with hands on hips as he rested a foot on the vanquished that lay squirming on the floor. He would draw his sword and slice through the neck, severing the head and then proceeding to walk through his make-believe Arch of Triumph.
Depending on how he was feeling, sometimes he would even catch specific kinds of infected. If he was particularly brave on a given day, he would try and trap a couple of runners, or even people with the aggressive strain of the flu, though the latter were few and far between since the dead had risen.
He drove aimlessly, heading to nowhere in particular. He had made a point of avoiding the larger of the built-up areas and kept to the backroads when he could. Now he drove his shiny new people-carrier through the countryside with the window down, playing his favourite music, his favourite items in the back, locked in a large black box that he patted and spoke to in a soothing tone now and then.
He really felt alive. Everybody dying had given him a new vitality. He had a purpose, and that purpose was to enjoy life while everyone else had theirs snatched away from them. But there was a problem; he had killed Elaine without a second thought and he had enjoyed the feeling afterward. She had provided him with a distraction when they were cornered by the dead and she had, in the process as he listened to her die, aroused him.
He had become damn right horny over the whole thing.
Now though, the killing of people who were already dead had lost its lustre and he was becoming tired of it. There was no excitement in it anymore.
They didn’t feel pain, or at least not on the level that he desired, and they didn't scream or beg for their lives before he dealt them the finishing blow. Instead, they just kept coming at him, even without their legs or arms, or blind as he had gouged out their eyes. They never backed down or cowered from him; something that would have fed his sense of power and complete control.
He needed more. He needed living people to give him his sense of Godliness.
He looked into the mirror as he drove, adopting his strongest and most intimidating face. “I am the Emperor. This is my world now,” he said in a deep growling voice at his reflection.
“You're just the Emperor of the dead and that's nothing,” his reflection argued back. “They don’t fear you and they don’t respect you. Worst of all, they don’t worship you. You're nothing, nothing but a fucking loser.”
“Fuck you!” he screamed. “Fuck you, cunt, cunt, fucking cunt!” He was ragging the steering wheel, his veins distended in his neck as he roared at his own image in the mirror.
He pulled to the side of the road and sat staring at the path ahead for a while. He was sweating and his heart pounded against his chest wall. “I'm not weak. I'm strong.” He lowered his head and rested it against the wheel. “I'm strong. I’ll show them.”
He glanced back up through the window. It was a clear sunny day and the heat shimmered slightly from the black surface of the road. The birds were singing and the insects buzzed by as they went about their business.
Tony smiled. All was right with the world. It was how it should be; just him and his possessions, with no one else to interfere with him doing as he pleased.
He put the car in to gear and drove on, the argument with himself forgotten, and singing along again to the sounds of Led Zeppelin.
24
People took it upon themselves over the weeks to perform certain tasks and duties, and within a short period things were running as smooth as could be expected with something that resembled a normal routine. As normal as could be expected given the circumstances.
Steve, Lee and Gary had taken on the responsibility of ensuring and maintaining the security of the park. With regular patrols and checks of the walls and gates, they identified weak points and possible blind spots that would need to be reinforced eventually. But, with such a large perimeter and such a small amount of manpower, they decided that the best course of action was to conduct a daily physical check of them and to also have a dedicated guard to stand watch around the house twenty four hours a day.
Everybody who was considered as being able bodied enough and with good eye sight took a turn in the shift that was posted on the roof of the house. The guard on duty was given specific points and directions to check regularly with the binoculars, as they stood watch. The elevated position of the house provided good all around visibility for a considerable distance, giving the people of the group ample warning of anything approaching, and time to react.
Gary had even assembled the entire group together at one point and given them a full presentation on the do’s and don’ts when it came to ensuring the safety of everyone involved. The walls, including all gates and access points, were declared out of bounds to all, unless they were escorted by either Steve, Gary or Lee.
There was a sort of curfew introduced without people being made to feel too restricted. No one, and it was emphasised that it was for their own safety, was to travel anywhere within the grounds alone during darkness, and without first letting other people know where they were going. To avoid panic of the thought of infected being on the loose in the park, Gary explained that it was mainly due to the fact that people could fall and hurt themselves or become lost in the extensive grounds of the park without anyone knowing they were missing until the morning.
The night guard wasn't exactly a hard job to do. It wasn't the army and no one was expected to sit and stare out into the blackness of the night for hours, or endlessly pace to and fro on the roof. The average stint was rarely longer than two to three hours and it was agreed that whoever stood watch during the night was excused any chores for the next day. Most people on duty took a book or magazine to
read and it was the norm to make sure that there was always a flask of hot coffee and sandwiches stacked inside the guard position; which consisted of a couple of fold away chairs and a gazebo to keep the rain off.
On the second night that the watch had been introduced, Lee had checked up on the guard position and found Jason fast asleep and snoring in his sleeping bag, the radio and binoculars nowhere to be seen.
Steve was awakened by the crashing and banging and the screams of pain from the rooftop. Lee ploughed into Jason with his fists and feet as the scrawny man lay zipped up to the neck in his sleeping bag and unable to protect himself as he was kicked around the roof, while Lee bawled and shouted at him for putting their lives at risk with his incompetence. It was decided after the incident that anyone found asleep on duty would be banished beyond the walls. Just the thought of such a punishment terrified most people into staying awake.
Of course, there were people that argued against such decisions and voiced their concerns and fears of the situation becoming a totalitarian regime. Gary, in his calm schoolteacher manner, explained to everyone that it was a matter of safety for the group and pointed out that should the worst happen, if the guard was asleep, they could all be overrun and killed by the infected. With visions of the dead tearing up the path etched firmly in their minds, the people at the house saw reason, all except Stephanie.
“Why do we have to obey the rules that you decide? Who voted that you should be calling the shots? The way I see it, you three,” she glanced from Gary to Steve and to Lee in turn as she spoke, “have pretty much taken over the place and now dictate what we can and can’t do. I mean, look what that thug,” she pointed to Lee who had his usual ‘butter wouldn't melt’ look on his face, “did to my husband.” She was doing her best to pitch an audience and rile people.
Steve, remembering the last confrontation he had with the vile woman stepped forward, his arms folded across his chest. He breathed in deeply before he looked her dead in the eye and spoke.
