by Jessica Ward
I could feel my cheeks blushing. "Do not say a word!" I told him grinning. "I wouldn't dream of it baby" was his cool response. "I'm just glad your home safe."
I looked up at him and smiled. Even in my highest heels he still towered over me. At 6 ft 2 he towered over most people. His broad shoulders accentuated his slim yet muscly physique. His dark hair perfectly contrasted against his bright blue eyes. Just looking at him made me knees go week, even after the 3 years we had been together.
I practically fell into his arms; he pulled me close and kissed my forehead. For a few seconds I forgot about what was going on around us, I was just relieved he was ok, and that he was here with me.
I walked through into our living room and looked around. Sat there on the sofa, I saw Lola and her husband Andy. They looked slightly shaken up, but Lola’s face was masked by the same false Cheshire cat smile, I had seen many times before.
Now although Lola has been a friend for some time, well more of an acquaintance, she really wasn't my favourite person in the world.
From the outside she was a pretty girl, she came across very conservative but had a nice slim, slender figure. She had very light blonde hair, and very pale skin. She was a typical dainty English rose type.
For as pleasant as she looked from the outside, on the inside, I always said she made Quasimodo look like a beauty queen. She had no common sense whatsoever. She also managed in the past, to piss off a lot of my close friends with her shameful behaviour.
She was very too faced. She turned up her nose at everyone, and had a holier than thou attitude. I've often thought in a past life she must have been one of those strict catholic nuns, the ones you used to often see in old fashioned schools.
She had an opinion on everything, but made out she had a perfect life. The reality was far from. She was extremely possessive of her husband Andy, she had him completely whipped. I have to admit we all felt sorry for the poor guy.
She spent most of her time pouting in front of the mirror, looking at herself in different angles, there was no one she could possibly love more than she did herself. We called her Duckface when she wasn't around, although, truth be told she looked more of a cross between a duck and a chipmunk with the false smile she always gave off. What I would do to wipe that smile of her face, it wound me up no end.
Her husband Andy on the other hand, was very down to earth. He had a calm and gentle manner, nothing seemed to faze him. Like I said, we all felt sorry for him. His wife was extremely high maintenance and very controlling. You could tell she wore the trousers in the relationship. I wish he had the courage to grow some balls and put her in her place. You could tell he wasn't happy. We all figured he just stayed with her to keep the peace. Although, collectively we thought he would be much better off on his own.
As a couple, they didn’t really look right together. Andy was very fit and active. He loved all outdoor sports, especially rock climbing and sea fishing. Andy and Nick often went on fishing and camping trips together; it’s how they became so close.
Andy wasn’t as broad as Nick was; he was slightly shorter at 5ft 11. Like Nick, he had dark hair, but was always clean shaven.
I wasn't exactly pleased to see them, but there was nothing I could do about it now. As much as I wanted to throw Duckface out and see her savaged by the virus that was infecting everyone else, I just wasn't that heartless. I certainly didn't want to see Andy have to face it alone out there; we were all much safer inside.
"What are you guys doing here?" I asked, secretly hoping they had just come round for a quick brew, before going back to their own house. They did nothing but brag about it, so why couldn’t they stay there.
"I saw what was happening in the news, and I had just had to come and make sure you guys were ok" said Lola in her all too familiar patronising tone.
I wasn't born yesterday. She doesn't give a crap about anyone else, unless it was for her own personal gain. My guess is that she knew she was a sitting duck (literally) in her specially made glass fronted house, and knew there was safety in numbers so decided to come to us for safety.
"How nice of you, but yes we're fine now" came my equally sarcy reply.
Ignoring my less than friendly response she carried on. "Well, now we're all together, and safe, thank god! I think we should all stick together. Besides when it comes down to it, I don’t think I feel completely safe on my own"
There it is! The real reason she came. She was too scared to deal with this herself, so came running to us for help. It didn’t go unnoticed that she had not acknowledged Andy in any of this. But that didn’t matter to her. Like with everything in life, it was all about her.
"Great, so I guess we're stuck with them now." I hissed to Nick, when we were finally alone in the kitchen. He just shrugged "yeah, it's not ideal but not a fat lot we can do about it now. Never should have let them in"
I just nodded. I knew he shared the same opinion as me when it came to Duckface. She really was that irritating. But he was right. Not a fat lot we can do about it, but make the most of a bad situation.
I suddenly remembered I hadn’t text Joyce. I grabbed my phone from my bag and quickly typed her message:
Hi, made it home safe! Nicks here as well as some irritating house guests. U ok? Xx
I quickly sent the message, I kept checking my phone eagerly awaiting a reply. I never received a response.
Getting back to the matter at hand, we needed a way to keep the infected out and ourselves in. I told Nick, Andy and Duckface what happened on the factory floor and recounted my journey home.
We decided the first thing we needed to do, was barricade the door. If one thing was for sure, it wasn’t just the infected we needed to defend ourselves from, it was the panicked looters and rioters that could prove to be an issue as well.
Luckily our flat had a little entrance cove, similar to a porch. This had another door on the right which opens to the main hallway of the flat. We decided to grab what we could and fill the entrance completely from top to bottom, so that in case the door locks were compromised, there was no way that anyone or anything was getting in.
We started scouring the flat trying to find anything we didn't need to block off the entranceway. We dismantled wardrobes, tables, and chairs and propped them up alongside the ironing board, a sofa and anything else we could get our hands on.
Once the barricade was up and we were confident nothing was getting in uninvited, my mind drifted to the other issues at hand.
We didn't know how long this pandemic was going to last. I had seen on the news how quickly it spread, but knew very little about the virus itself. I had one encounter with the infected, and I wasn't in a rush to repeat that.
A couple hours later, I was exhausted. I felt safe enough in the apartment; I just wanted to go to bed. I was sick of making small talk with Duckface, and had stopped listening to her hours ago. Nick and I purposely left the guest room bed in tact when barricading the door, so we offered this to them.
We took ourselves off to bed and settled down for the night, not knowing what we were in for the next day.
“What are we going to do?” I asked him once we were alone “We can’t stay in here forever”
He pulled me in close “I don’t know baby, I don’t know of anywhere we can go just yet. Don’t worry about it, you’re safe now, just try and go to sleep”
I turned into him and buried my head into his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around me tighter, and eventually I drifted off.
I woke up at 8am the next morning. It was a rough night; the apartment was boiling, so we were forced to open the windows. The air outside felt thick and heavy. It smelt like bonfire night, it was as if a raging fire was burning just a couple miles away. There probably was. Screams and cries for help could be heard in all directions, making sleep a near impossible task.
I'm not too sure what time I finally drifted off, Nick held me tightly all night. If he hadn't, I don't think I would have slept at all. Even before any
of this happened the safest place for me was in his arms. I would always say to him "I don't care where we are or what we're doing, as long we’re together, I'm happy"
I know, you’re probably all reaching for your sick buckets right about now, but it's true. Even more so now. It is the only place I truly feel at ease.
Nick was still asleep and I couldn't hear the other two stirring. I decided to take a look out the bedroom window and see for myself, what destruction, if any, last night’s events had left.
As a safety precaution we closed all curtains and blinds throughout the apartment when we were barricading the door. We didn't want to alert anyone to our presence, either dead or alive. We knew there would be other survivors out there, but the risk was too great. We needed to look after ourselves. We already had limited supplies and we needed them to last as long as possible. Any other mouths to feed would just be a burden. We didn't have anything to offer.
As I got closer to the curtains, I froze on the spot, trying to listen out for any movement both inside and out. When I was confident no sound could be heard, I leaned against the wall. Pulling the curtain back a few inches I peered out the side of the window, making sure I couldn't be seen from the outside.
The sight before me was surreal. Shopping trolleys littered the pavement, obviously from the nearby shops. Rubbish was strewn everywhere, floating in the wind. Pools of blood could be seen dotting the roads and gardens, however, more disturbingly, the owners of said blood were nowhere to be seen.
It looked as if we were living on one of the roughest council estates of Wythenshawe. Not a high end apartment building on the outskirts of Wilmslow.
I looked into the distance, past the abandoned shopping trolleys and path of destruction.
There, stood on the corner, staring into the road, was a young girl. She was dressed in her pyjamas and holding what looked like a fluffy toy rabbit. She was swaying from side to side as if with the wind. She seemed completely mesmerised with the road she was fixating on.
The more I stared at her the more I recognised her. She lived on one of the new build houses to the left of our apartment. I had never spoken to her but had often seen her in the summer playing with her friends and her other siblings.
She was a plump short girl and I had no doubts in my mind that the poor girl had downs syndrome. She stood out to me, as she would always be running a few paces behind the others. Once or twice I'd seen and heard arguments break out between her friends, if and when one of them had said something horrible to her. They were irritating and loud at times. But they seemed a good bunch of kids.
I couldn't take my eyes of her, she didn't look injured, but at the same time something was not right about her at all. She was usually a smiley, happy child with rosy cheeks. Now, she looked very pale and had an eerie vacant expression as she stared at, well nothing. I knew she had not seen me and was not facing in my direction.
All of a sudden she dropped what she was holding, she turned and walked off slowly into the distance. As she wandered away, I noticed her right foot was bent out of place. It looked like a bone was protruding through her ankle. This didn't seem to faze her at all; it just seemed to slow her down slightly, as she shuffled with each step.
My eyes drew back to the fluffy toy rabbit she discarded. Only it wasn't a toy rabbit, judging from the blood and bones sticking out at all angles, it was without a doubt real. And dead.
The blood on the rabbit’s fur had darkened as and the bones were a bright white, they had been licked completely clean. It was obviously once a sweet childhood pet. She must have found it in one of the gardens, if not her own.
I turned away from the window, feeling slightly sick. I didn't tell anyone else about the girl I had seen, I didn't want anyone to panic, we needed to figure out a plan and keep ourselves alive, that was the main concern.
As soon as everyone was awake, I gathered them in the living room. We discussed our options as it became clear, none of us were in a rush to leave the apartment in the immediate future.
This being said we still needed a plan. Nothing was certain anymore. The undead weren't our only problem. Right now we had internet, we had TV and we had electricity, gas and water. For how long, none of us knew.
As a first point of call, we left Duckface and Andy to check the food supplies. We had collectively decided that it was best to use up the fresh food first, as this had the shortest shelf life. We would then move onto the frozen food, just in case we lost power and the freezer defrosted itself.
Whilst they got to work on making an inventory of the entire food contents, we started filling up bottles, containers, glasses, anything we could find with water. Just in case our water supply got shut off, or worse, contaminated. We even filled the sinks and bath just so we had as much water as possible.
We then went on the hunt for medical supplies. We had an abundance of hay fever tablets, a couple of boxes of Paracetamol, Imodium and travel sickness tablets. We had half a box of Disney Princess Plasters and a digital thermometer. We had no antibiotics and no substantial first aid kit. All in all, we were not doing well on the medical front.
“Babe, you still have those ridiculous princess plasters?” Nick asked me when he found them.
“Yep, why wouldn’t I? There pink and pretty and have princesses on them!” I replied.
“Ok, whatever makes you happy” he rolled his eyes. “bloody princess plasters” he muttered.
“What was that?” I asked
“Love you” he replied.
“Thought so” I shouted to him as I crossed the room.
Once we had all the information together we figured we had about 3 weeks’ worth of food and water, as long as we rationed well. Our medical supplies needed work, but there was nothing we could do about that now.
“So what do we do when we’ve got no more food left?” Duckface asked.
“I have no idea” I shrugged.
“We’ll figure it out when it comes to it. None of us really know what’s going on out there. Who knows it might die down in a few days” Said Andy, optimistic as ever.
“That might be the case, but I suggest we prepare for the worst. Just to be on the safe side” Nick said, thinking more realistically.
We needed to know as much as possible about what we were facing. So we switched on the TV, and were speechless as we took in the carnage unravelling before our eyes. Fire-fighters were running around trying to put out burning buildings, whilst people ran screaming in every direction. Groups of the infected could be seen chowing down on innocent passers-by. Abandoned police cars and ambulances were left in the road; some had been left after crashing into other cars and telephone poles. It was complete bedlam.
"This video footage was taken last night, in the city centre of Manchester. The emergency services have been unable to contain the outbreak, the current death toll for Manchester has now reached over 100,000 in the last 48 hours" came the voice from the newscaster.
"The government has urged all citizens to stay indoors, do not open the door for anyone, I repeat, do not open the door for anyone"
The screen jumped back to the scenes we had just witness, it was a repeat broadcast.
We sat there for a few minutes in complete silence. All the hairs on my arm stood up and I couldn’t help but shiver.
"Is this really happening?" I finally broke the silence.
"I believe so" Andy solemnly replied. "I suggest we do as they say. We're safe here, we’re certainly not going to let anyone else in, and there’s not a chance I'm going out there" his previous optimism fading out.
"We need to find out more about this virus, I don't know what's caused this, but I am not going to end up like those things walking around out there" Nick added.
From out of nowhere, Duckface shrieked "Oh my god no, I can’t believe it, Jane’s dead!"
We all turned to her, "how the hell do you know that?" I asked. She looked up from her phone. "It's on Facebook" she exclaimed. "Sophie has just posted this, l
ook"
The post read like this:
Idk what's going on here, but I've just been attacked by some weirdo on my way home, I'm fine but Jane got hurt. He bit her in the neck and she fell. There was blood everywhere and she didn't make it. Someone please help wtf do I do?!
I scrolled down and her newsfeed was filled with posts asking for help, and RIP messages for the fallen and infected friends and family members.
I handed back her phone. I couldn't believe what was going on, and how far this had spread in such a short time.
My mind went back to the factory floor. The sight of the poor, old caretaker John being devoured by my ex colleague Diane. It was horrific, and it was going on all around us. I thought back to the way Diane looked at the window in the office. She had no emotion, just a vacant, blank expression as she tried to smash her way through the glass.
