Blog of the Dead - Life

by Lisa Richardson

  I sent three of the St Andrews lot around the back of the hotel to guard the fire escape, while the rest of us carried on towards the front entrance. I could see the hotel’s door stood ajar, just as it had when me and Kay found the place.

  I edged up the steps with the others close behind me and glanced through the glass in the door. I couldn’t see anything moving in the darkness inside so I pushed my way inside. I readied myself, expecting an HZ to jump out at me. But nothing stirred inside. I couldn’t quite believe Marco would leave the entrance to his lair unguarded.

  ‘Someone pass me a torch,’ I whispered. I grabbed a torch, not bothering to look to see who passed it to me, turned it on and shone it around the interior of the hotel as I stepped inside.

  The reception area to the left was empty so I swung the beam around to the right as I crept further in. The beam glided over the large curved sofa. I couldn’t see the back of the room from where I was because it bent around to the left forming an L-shape, but Kay and Misfit snuck ahead of me, following the torch beam. Misfit turned to me and mouthed, ‘Clear’ and he and Kay rejoined me and the others in the foyer.

  ‘This is too easy,’ I said as Sean placed the cardboard box on the floor and handed out the petrol bombs. There were nine in total. I took one, Misfit, Kay, Charlotte, Soph, who passed her chainsaw to one of the other St Andrews lot to free up her hands, Clay and Shane each took another and Sean kept two for himself. I handed a lighter to everyone with a petrol bomb. ‘They haven’t secured the front door and there’s no one on guard. Much too easy.’

  ‘Easy’s good,’ said Stewart, holding his sword at his side. ‘I like easy.’

  ‘Sophie’s right,’ said Sean. ‘This is too easy. I don’t like it.’

  ‘You think they’re planning an ambush or something?’ asked Charlotte.

  ‘I’m not so keen on ambushes,’ said Stewart.

  ‘Expect the unexpected,’ I said to the others. ‘Sam, Cleo, you stay down here and keep an eye on the entrance while we head upstairs.’ I watched Sam and Cleo nod their heads at me and fall into position, before me and the others headed to the door to the stairwell.

  I turned off the torch, handed it to Jordan and pulled open the door. I paused, the door propped open with my right shoulder while I strained my ears. I expected to hear the sound of HZ feet charging down the stairs ahead of me, cutting us off, while, at the same time, another flood of HZs poured into the foyer from outside, trapping us in the confined space. But nothing.

  I slid through the door, the others gathering around me on the small landing. I climbed a few steps and turned to face everyone. ‘Right,’ I said, keeping my voice to a whisper. ‘As soon as we start throwing these things,’ I raised my petrol bomb, ‘the HZs are going to fight back and the last thing we want is to be trapped in a burning building with an army of HZs to fight through in order to get out. So we’re only going to go as high as the first floor.’ I noted the nods of agreement before I turned and crept up the steps. I stopped outside a fire door on the first floor.

  Misfit carried on up the stairs to the second floor. ‘What are you doing?’ I mouth the words rather than said them.

  ‘I’ll be quick. Carry on,’ Misfit whispered back.

  I watched him disappear up the stairs, unable to call him back for fear of waking the HZs, before pulling the fire door open and peering into the corridor beyond. I found it empty with two rooms to my left and the lift and three rooms to the right. I spotted a chair at the end of the corridor and, with Kay holding the door, I crept towards it. I carried the chair back and used it to wedge the door open, wanting the fire we were about to start to spread as much as possible.

  I nodded my head to Clay, his gloves hanging around his neck, Charlotte, Chris and Sean. With a sideways flick of my head I indicated for them to follow me while the others remained in the hall, weapons at the ready should we get busted.

  The five of us edged our way along the corridor to the right. There was another fire door next to the lift and I put a hand out to halt the other four while I pulled it open and used a fire extinguisher as a doorstop. I could see another corridor, this one with a further four rooms, two either side. I nodded to Sean and Chris and the pair of them dived into the corridor and kicked a couple of the doors, breaking the locks. The doors flew inwards. Clay and Charlotte, the rags in the tops of the petrol bombs lit, threw their bottles down the corridor as soon as Chris and Sean darted back out.

  The petrol bombs exploded with a whoosh, igniting the carpet and a padded chair at the end of the corridor. ‘Go!’ I said, expecting HZs to pour out of the rooms at any moment. We darted back towards the others, Sean and Chris kicking in a couple of doors on the way. Sean stopped, lit a bomb and threw it into one of the bedrooms. As me, Clay, Chris, Sean and Charlotte ducked back out into the stairwell, Kay lit the rag in her bomb and threw it down the corridor we’d just exited.

  I saw Misfit sprinting down from the upper levels to join us, his right hand raised in a thumbs-up sign, and we all darted back down towards the ground floor. As we neared the bottom, Shane lit his petrol bomb, turned and threw it up the staircase where it exploded against a wall, flames igniting the patterned carpet and the wooden banisters.

  While the others dived back out through the door to the foyer, I snuck off and carried on down the next flight of stairs to the restaurant. The door was closed and I tried the handle to find it was still locked. The key was in the lock so I turned it. The smell that wafted out of the open door was even worse than when me and Kay were there the day before, I guessed because it had been sealed with all those putrid, dead body smells building up in the closed space.

  I couldn’t see a thing in the pitch dark of the subterranean room. I turned on my lighter and held my arm out, drawing the small flame across the room. The glow didn’t reach far, just far enough for me to see the first of the bodies. I took a few steps forwards, lit the rag of my petrol bomb and threw it across the restaurant. The resulting whoosh as the bottle smashed lit up the room in greater detail and, as the rotting bodies of the HZs’ victims began to catch light and burn, I turned and fled out into the landing.

  Smoke from upstairs filled the stairwell, stinging my eyes and catching in my throat. I pulled the neck of my jumper up and over my mouth and nose. I heard feet pounding down the stairs and I panicked, thinking it was an HZ. I pulled my knife from my belt. The smoke limited my vision but I readied myself to charge at whoever showed themselves from around the bend. I immediately recognised the skinny figure that emerged from the dense smoke – Misfit, his t-shirt pulled up to cover his face below the eyes. ‘This wasn’t part of the plan,’ he spluttered as I ran up to meet him.

  ‘No and neither was the second floor.’

  ‘Sometimes … you just … have to roll with it,’ said Misfit between coughs. He grabbed my arm, pulling me the rest of the way up the stairs and through to the foyer to the others.

  The air was clearer here and I let the neck of my jumper drop down while I coughed the smoke from my lungs. Other than me and Misfit, only Sean and Soph remained in the foyer. I heard Sean yell,‘Go!’ and as I darted towards the exit, I saw Sean and Soph light their petrol bombs. Sean threw his against the wall in the reception area where the whoosh of flames caught the large L-shaped sofa and the curtains. Soph chucked hers into the sitting area.

  Outside, I ran down the steps, Misfit at my side, to catch up with the others who had gathered on the road opposite the hotel. Sean and Soph exited last, with Sean limping slightly as he and Soph charged down the steps to join us. We all stood and gazed at the imposing building as black smoke billowed from the front door. ‘That was definitely too easy,’ said Sean.

  We all held our weapons, ready to take down any HZs that fled the burning building but in their absence I said, ‘Yep. They’re either fucking heavy sleepers or they’re not in there at all.’

  Entry Nineteen

  We stood on the street and watched the hotel burn while the sun rose behind
us. Some of the windows on the first and second floors exploded from the heat, belching dense black smoke into the clear morning air. A few zombies staggered along the street towards us but, as a group, we were more concerned by the lack of fleeing HZs. Any that hadn’t died in the fire should have emerged by now, their half burnt bodies flooding – choking and hollering – through the front door to put their last grains of life into a battle with us. One we would have had the strength to win.

  By the time Max, Tracey and Char emerged from the back of the building shaking their heads and shrugging their shoulders, we had to admit we had wasted our time. Marco and the HZs had gone elsewhere. Which sucked.

  An emaciated zombie with only a tuft of thin hair on its shrivelled head lurched along the street towards Sean. If he saw it coming, he chose to ignore it and he continued to gaze up at the hotel, flames reaching out from the windows and licking at the air. He scratched his stubbled chin. The others had already started to walk away, back towards the harbour but Sean didn’t move. ‘Sean,’ I called to him.

  ‘Fucking bastard can’t hide forever.’ Without looking, Sean swung his crowbar at the zombie just as it lunged for him, knocking out a large chunk of skull and brain matter. Then he turned and joined me, Misfit and Kay to follow the others, away from Hotel Hell.

  When we arrived back at our camp, everyone stood outside the caravans like extras waiting for the director to yell, ‘Aaaaaaand … action!’ We had failed to defeat Marco and wipe out the HZs, we had no idea where they had gone, and Sean and the St Andrews lot had been cheated out of their justice and revenge. Maybe they had left town? Maybe we would never see them again? But that was a big fucking maybe.

  Sean stood near the ashy remnants of yesterday’s fire. I watched as the crowbar slid from his right hand onto the cold, patchy grass. He raised his arms, clasping his fingers behind his head and drew his elbows in as he lowered his head. His shoulders shook as he sobbed silently. Kay was the only one who moved. She walked over to him, put her arm around him and guided him towards the main caravan while the rest of us looked on helplessly.

  Once they had disappeared inside, Misfit darted off to his caravan and Charlotte busied herself with collecting fresh firewood, while me, Clay and Stewart continued with our ‘standing’. When Misfit emerged from the caravan holding his backpack, I strode over to him. ‘You going hunting?’ With the supplies me and Misfit brought back from the store the other day, he didn’t need to go, but I knew how much he loved being out there.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, scratching at his unkempt long hair.

  ‘I’ll walk down with you,’ I said. ‘I want to go and see Flick today … to warn her about Marco and the HZs.’

  Clay joined me and Misfit. For a self proclaimed ‘lone warrior’ he appeared to be spending very little time alone these days. But I didn’t say anything and I left the two of them sitting on the promenade with their legs dangling over the edge, their booted toes barely above the waterline while they fished and chatted like old buddies, and I made the short walk down the promenade to Flick’s shack.

  She stood outside on the wide, algae covered promenade, her shotgun in hand, watching Sara as she stood at the edge, gazing out to sea. Clumps of seaweed lay on the ground around their feet from where the sea washed over this part of the promenade when the tide was at its highest.

  ‘Sophie!’ Flick said when she saw me approach. ‘Are you OK? Misfit came by first thing yesterday looking for you. He said you and Kay had gone missing. He told me all about the murders at St Andrews and that guy Sean being a suspect …’

  ‘It’s OK … I’m OK,’ I said, coming to stand beside her, a couple of metres back from Sara. ‘I didn’t believe Sean did it but I knew he knew who did. Me and Kay helped him to escape and we found the murderer.’ I told Flick everything that had happened with Anna, Marco and the HZs. ‘I just wanted to warn you and Sara to be careful out here,’ I said. ‘Marco and god knows how many more HZs are still out there. We’re going to deal with them once we track them down. But if you and Sara want to move into our camp or down to St Andrews where you’ll be safer …’

  ‘Thanks. But no. We’re happy here.’

  ‘Are you sure? I’d feel a hell of a lot happier if you’d come with us.’

  ‘I’m sure, Sophie. We want to stay here.’

  ‘OK, but the offer’s there. How is she?’ I asked, nodding my head to Sara.

  ‘Oh Sophie, it’s amazing. Come on.’ I followed Flick to the edge of the promenade. Now that I stood close to Sara, I could see that her skin, while still pale, had healed since I last saw her. She looked like all she needed was a bit of sun to bring the colour back and you’d think she was a normal twelve-year-old human. ‘Sara,’ began Flick. ‘Look who’s come to see you.’ Sara turned to look at me. Her eyes had a light in them I had never seen before. She was a pretty, delicate looking girl with long sandy coloured hair, still thick and full of lustre, and I struggled to imagine she’d ever harmed a human being. ‘Look, it’s Sophie,’ said Flick.

  ‘Hi, Sara,’ I said, trying to keep my excitement at bay.

  Sara cocked her head to one side and groaned softly at me. ‘Sara, what’s this?’ Flick pointed towards the gentle waves lapping at the promenade below our feet. Sara carried on looking at me, so Flick put the shotgun under her arm, took Sara’s right hand in hers and pointed her fingers out to sea. Sara now turned her head with a slow, jerky movement, towards the water. ‘Sara, what’s this?’ Sara groaned. ‘It’s the sea. The sea,’ said Flick.

  ‘Seeeeeeeeeee,’ said Sara.

  It was a fucking miracle. I couldn’t help laughing. And I wanted to dance. ‘She said it,’ I said. ‘She really said it!’ And I thought of Sam … my Sam, back in the pub cellar. An infected zombie. But where there are infections, there are sometimes cures.

  Entry Twenty

  The sun was going down when me, Clay and Misfit, with fresh fish, a few seagulls and a couple of squirrels strung up and slung over his shoulder, climbed up the track to our camp. Charlotte let us in through the fence panel and as we approached the blazing fire, my chilled exposed skin welcomed its warmth. Sean emerged from the main caravan holding up two bottles of whisky. ‘I found these in the stack of supplies,’ he said easing himself down beside the fire next to Kay. ‘Life’s been pretty shit for a while and I intend to get wankered. Anyone want to join me?’

  ‘Why not,’ I said as I sat down on the other side of Kay.

  ‘I’ll go and get some glasses,’ said Charlotte.

  ‘We don’t need glasses,’ said Sean, twisting the top off one of the bottles and taking a swig, before handing the bottle to Kay. ‘Let’s do this cowboy style.’ He opened the other bottle and held it across to Stewart, who sat cross legged, strumming his guitar. He hesitated for a moment before taking the bottle from Sean.

  Kay passed her bottle to me and I gulped down a large mouthful, feeling the liquid burn my throat. For me, neat whisky starts off a disgusting experience with the initial vile, medicinal taste and the burning in my mouth, then the pleasure kicks in as I track the gentle warmth as it flows down my throat to my stomach. I took another swig, smaller this time and passed the bottle to Misfit. Our day’s haul lay at his feet, and he had his hunting knife at the ready to skin the cute dead squirrels.

  Misfit knocked back a hefty mouthful of whisky and raised the bottle in a ‘cheers’ motion towards Sean. Sean nodded to Misfit and accepted the other bottle back from Stewart, while Misfit passed his bottle onto Charlotte. She took a dainty sip and winced as though she’d just sucked a lemon, before handing it to Clay.

  ‘Nah, I don’t really drink,’ he said, his palm out to ward off the bottle. Charlotte went to pass the bottle back to Misfit when Clay changed his mind. ‘But I guess the one swig couldn’t hurt.’ He took the bottle from Charlotte and knocked back a hefty glug.

  Stewart played his guitar while the whisky bottles were passed back and forth, stopping to take the occasional glug whenever the whisky came hi
s way. Soon one of the bottles lay empty by the fire. Stewart started playing a song and I recognised it immediately as Zombie by The Cranberries and I laughed at his twisted music choice. Stewart glanced up at me, a glint in his eye and flashed his cheeky grin. I began singing the words, unashamed of my shaky, tuneless voice, but still relieved when Misfit joined in to cover my own inadequacies as a singer with a strong, soulful voice I never imagined would come out of him.

  I smiled as I sang, but tears ran down my cheeks as I sang words written to remember two boys killed in an IRA bombing. Mothers had now lost their children to zombies, but the lyrics reminded me no zombie – a creature driven by the instinct to feed – is as bad as what humans can do to humans.

  Everyone, except Sean, joined in with the chorus and we sang and we drank the last of the whisky. Misfit disappeared for a little while, just as Stewart played a David Bowie tune, and returned with some beers. Movement in the dark outside the camp alerted me that our party had attracted a few zombies, but I didn’t care. The tears had already dried on my cheeks and I laughed as Stewart started playing Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive and, as he sang the lyrics, I embraced a moment of merriment with my family. And after the crappy couple of days we’d had, I figured we deserved it.

  I shot up to a sitting position, awake in an instant at the sound of a bang on the side of the caravan. I had gone to sleep on the sofa in the living room of the main caravan with Misfit beside me, and a completely hammered Clay had crashed on the floor.

  All the curtains in the caravan were drawn and, in the dim light, I saw Misfit standing by the door, his left hand on the handle. In his right, he held a hunting knife. We stared at each other with wide eyes. At the sound of another bang, Clay groaned. ‘My head,’ he said, levering himself up and looking from me to Misfit. Misfit raised a finger on his knife hand to his lips.