Blog of the Dead - Life

by Lisa Richardson

  ‘Get away from her!’ said Flick as she appeared from the office she shared with Sara. Flick came to stand beside her and pointed her shotgun at Amy.

  ‘Get away from her? Don’t you mean it? It’s a fucking zombie. A dead, ugly thing and it needs to get away from me!’ yelled Amy as she waved her knife at Sara. Sara shrank back behind Flick, while Flick shoved her shotgun in Amy’s face.

  The rest of us, including Misfit, who I’d noticed had slept, blanketless, by the window, had got to our feet. ‘Amy, you fucktard, she’s as harmless as a baby,’ said Kay, stepping forwards.

  ‘Yeah? Really? Can any of you be sure of that?’ spat Amy, without lowering her knife or taking her eyes off Flick’s. ‘It’s a zombie and who here hasn’t lost loved ones to zombies? Who here hasn’t watched someone they love die slowly only to get up and try and kill them? Who here doesn’t spend every waking moment fearing for their lives because of zombies like that one?’ Amy thrust her knife above Flick’s shoulder in the direction of Sara.

  ‘Not zombies like her,’ I said, shoving past Jordan and Sean. ‘She’s healing. Her body is fighting the virus and she is becoming human.’

  ‘She’ll never be human,’ said Amy. ‘She’ll always carry the virus. She’ll always be a danger.’

  ‘Look at her, for fuck’s sake,’ said Sean. ‘I mean, I’ve only just found out about her but anyone can see she’s completely placid. And the others have told me she can even talk now.’

  ‘I’m really not interested in your thoughts,’ Amy snapped. Sean gritted his teeth and clenched his fists at his side, but he said nothing. ‘What if she gets angry and bites one of us?’ said Amy to the rest of us. ‘It’s not worth the risk. I want her out of here.’

  ‘She won’t bite anyone,’ said Flick, her gun still trained of Amy’s head. ‘I’ve lived with her for months.’

  ‘She looks like she wanted to bite me,’ said Amy.

  ‘Are you surprised?’ said Kay and I nudged her in the ribs.

  ‘What was she doing out anyway?’ asked Amy.

  ‘She’s learned to use doorhandles,’ said Flick.

  ‘Oh great, so we have a zombie just roaming about the place!’ said Amy.

  ‘Look, you put your knife down,’ said Kay jabbing a finger at Amy. ‘And you put your gun down,’ she said, looking at Flick. ‘Or the pair of you will see that I’m far more dangerous than any zombie, healing or otherwise. Put ‘em down!’

  Flick lowered her gun by a few inches. ‘Keep her away from Sara,’ she said before lowering the gun fully and holding it at her side.

  ‘Keep it away from me,’ said Amy, lowering her knife.

  ‘OK, look,’ I began, glancing from Amy to Flick. ‘Some people who aren’t used to her are a little nervous around Sara, that’s understandable. But we’re a team, and Sara is a part of that team and she’s going nowhere. Amy, believe me, she isn’t just harmless, she’s hope for the future and it is up to us to protect her.’

  ‘Hope for the future? No, she’s a ticking time bomb,’ said Amy, her cheeks glowing red. ‘There are kids here. Do you put a zombie’s wellbeing over theirs?’

  ‘I’ll take full responsibility for her,’ said Flick. ‘I’ll keep her with me and as soon as it’s safe, we’ll go back to our home and leave the rest of you alone.’

  ‘Whatever,’ said Amy. She turned and stomped off to the front office, barging through Chris, Soph and Kelly, who’d all gathered by the opening next to the stud wall.

  Flick guided Sara back into the end office. I ducked into the front office, grabbed a tin of ham and one of vegetable soup and a tin opener, and went after Flick. I knocked on the door. ‘It’s me, Sophie,’ I said through the door. The door opened and Flick put her face to the three inch gap she allowed between the door and the frame. ‘I wondered if Sara was hungry,’ I said, holding up the can of meat.

  Flick opened the door further and I slipped inside the small office. I saw one desk along the right hand side of the room, one window to my left and another window straight ahead. Filing cabinets lined the rest of the walls. I handed the tin to Flick. ‘Thanks, Sophie,’ she said before tugging the ring pull and scooping out a handful of pink meat and jelly. She held the meat out for Sara. ‘Food,’ said Flick.

  ‘Fooo,’ said Sara and she took a couple of steps closer to Flick, sniffing the air between her and the proffered food. I watched as Sara came so close to Flick’s fingers that her nose touched the meat. ‘Fooooo’ she said again.

  ‘Yes, food,’ said Flick.

  I held my breath. I had never seen any aggression from Sara but seeing Flick with her fingers covered in pungent jellied meat, held out to a zombie made me nervous. I continued to watch, amazed, as Sara opened her mouth like a child waiting for their medicine and Flick placed a piece of the meat inside. Sara waited for Flick’s fingers to be clear, then she began to chew. I relaxed a little, now Flick no longer had her fingers in biting distance of a zombie’s mouth. I held up the vegetable soup, ‘And I have –’ I stopped mid sentence when pieces of chewed meat and bubbly saliva dribbled from Sara’s mouth and down her chin. Flick grabbed a sheet of A4 paper, what looked like a spreadsheet printed on it, from the desk and used it to mop up the meaty saliva.

  ‘She doesn’t like it?’

  ‘I guess not. It has to be fresh meat,’ said Flick. ‘Looks like her system just isn’t used to processed food any more.’

  ‘We don’t have any fresh meat,’ I said, glancing out the window. The snow had stopped falling in the night, but fresh, white snow, a good few feet, covered the ground. I walked over to the end window that looked out over the car park. I saw a zombie, its legs trapped in the snow almost up to its knees. It saw me and swung its arms up, the movement made it lose its balance and it fell forwards. It looked up at me, on its belly, and began crawling though the snow towards the building, until it managed to stagger onto its feet again. It only managed to lumber a few paces before it hit deep snow and tumbled forwards again. I turned away from the window and walked back to Flick. ‘What will happen if she doesn’t eat?’ I asked, placing the soup can and the tin opener down on a desk.

  ‘She’ll get hungry.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘I don’t know. What happens to you when you get hungry?’ asked Flick.

  ‘I get grumpy,’ I said. Then I remembered what Jake used to say when he was hungry, ‘My tummy is angry.’

  Entry Twenty-Five

  When I emerged from Flick’s office, I noticed that Amy’s bedding had gone. Sean, Kay and Soph stood at the gap between this and the next office, talking, while Misfit stood alone by the window. He gazed off into the distance, playing with my unsmoked cigarette in the fingers of his right hand. I headed towards him. ‘Sara needs fresh meat,’ I said.

  Misfit turned and looked at me sheepishly. He handed me the cigarette, then nodded. ‘Then I’ll get some,’ he said. And while I had wanted and expected him to say that, my heart wished he’d just be a selfish bastard for once and just ignore me and stay in and stay safe. ‘I’ll need you,’ he added. ‘Help me get outside and wait for me in the van to let me in again.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said.

  ‘You’re the only one I trust.’

  ‘Ok.’

  Sean and Kay offered to help us shift the trolleys from the bottom of the stairwell. We piled some up on top of each other to create enough space to open the door before squeezing out onto the shop floor. The four of us made our way to the van. I unlocked and slid open the side door and climbed inside. Misfit followed me. I crouched by the back doors. ‘Be careful,’ I said. ‘There’s a zombie somewhere to the left, it couldn’t move very well in the snow, but it’s out there.’

  Misfit nodded. ‘OK, thanks.’

  ‘Are you sure you want to go?’ I asked. ‘Isn’t it going to be hard finding something to hunt in all this snow?’

  ‘Actually, it’ll be easier,’ said Misfit, his hunting knife in his right hand. ‘Anything not hibernating will leav
e tracks I can follow. Besides, what’s the alternative, wait for Sara to get so hungry that she attacks one of us?’

  ‘She wouldn’t do that. She –’

  ‘She’s a zombie, Sophie.’

  ‘She’s healing. She wouldn’t –’

  ‘I’m not saying Amy was right to kick off, but Sara is infected. We have to be careful,’ said Misfit.

  ‘I know. You’re right,’ I said, gritting my teeth. I took a deep breath before adding, ‘Just you be careful out there.’

  ‘I will.’ I unlocked and swung open the back doors of the van. Misfit glanced left and right and then darted out into the snow, a wild animal after his prey.

  I watched after him until he disappeared around the corner of the building, on his way to the nearby hills. I heard a dragging sound to my left. I pulled the left door closed and looked down to see the zombie I’d seen from the office window appearing around the side of the van. It hauled itself through the deep snow on its stomach. ‘Oh just fuck off,’ I said to it and pulled my knife from my belt. I stepped down onto the snow, into Misfit’s tracks. The zombie reached up for me. I slammed my knife into the top of its head and it slumped, face first into the snow, black blood staining the perfect white.

  Sean jumped down from the back of the van, his boots making a crunching sound as they flattened a patch of virgin snow. He no longer showed any evidence of his limp. I noticed the bruise around his right eye had begun to fade and the various cuts on his face were healing well. ‘I’m going to sit up top,’ he said, nodding to the van’s roof. ‘Then I can keep a lookout from all sides.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’ I watched him place his feet on the rear bumper, grab hold of a bar along the back and haul himself up and onto the roof. He stood, wrapping his long black coat around himself to keep the icy chill out.

  I sat with my legs hanging from the back of the van, keeping the right door open. With no windows in the back doors, I didn’t want to shut both of them or else I wouldn’t see Misfit on his return. Kay sat with her legs hanging from the side door, into the café, her axe in her hand.

  ‘So,’ I began, keeping my voice low, ‘how’s it going with,’ I nodded my head up towards the roof to indicate Sean.

  Kay gave a little laugh. ‘As well as any relationship can in the zombie apocalypse,’ she said. ‘And with zero privacy now we’re on the run.’

  ‘Yeah, I know that one,’ I said, remembering times when me and Sam were together and had to share a room with others. ‘Still, there’s always places where you can be alone.’

  ‘Oh yeah, we’ve already worked that one out. Well, that is until we need to store dead bodies in the ladies’ loo,’ said Kay with a wink.

  ‘Yuk, too much information, Kay! And it stinks in there.’

  ‘Needs must.’

  ‘I don’t want to know.’ I said.

  ‘He had a wife before the outbreak.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘Yeah. Sounds like they were happy too. He was visiting his dad when the outbreak started and she couldn’t go. She had to work or something. He never found her.’

  ‘Oh. I knew he helped his sister look for her kid,’ I said. ‘But I didn’t know about his wife. He never mentioned her. But then, if everyone you met in the apocalypse insisted on telling you about everyone they’d lost, we’d never get around to killing any zombies.’

  ‘And some loses are too hard to talk about,’ added Kay, looking down to her lap.

  ‘Yeah. True. Well, I’m glad he’s found you.’ I said. ‘We have to take joy wherever we can find it. But then, on the other hand, sometimes having someone special makes it even harder.’

  ‘How are you doing, you know … Sam?’

  ‘It hurts everyday. But then, what doesn’t these days,’ I said, looking out the back of the van at the snow covered car park. ‘Thanks for not telling anyone what I did back at the pub.’

  ‘What? That you’ve trapped the zombie of your dead boyfriend in a cellar because you think a healing zombie will one day lead to a cure?’ I shot Kay a look, then turned back to the car park so Kay didn’t see the tears welling up in my eyes. ‘Why would I tell anyone that? That’s your thing, Sophie.’

  ‘I can’t give up hope,’ I said, trying to keep my voice level.

  ‘No. Hope is all we have. But just get your priorities right.’

  I span around to look at Kay, bringing my knees up into the van. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Concentrate on the living,’ said Kay. ‘Not on the dead.’

  Sean’s head swung down to peer at us upside down through the open door, making me jump. ‘Ladies,’ he said. ‘We have some zombies out here, if you’d care to join me?’

  I slid down from the van and peered around the side to see five zombies staggering with great difficulty through the snow from the left of the supermarket. The front runners would fall, their stiff, rotting legs unable to master the art of walking in three feet of fresh snow, and then clamber back onto their feet, only to fall again. The three that followed did better, managing to stay on their feet in the slush that had been churned and flattened by the leaders.

  Sean jumped down from the roof and Kay followed me out of the van, pushing the door closed behind her, and together we took long, purposeful strides through the snow towards the zombies. I drove my knife into the ear of one of the front runners, while Sean slammed his crowbar into the side of the other’s head. As the next three lurched closer, something whizzed past my left shoulder and I watched a snowball hit one of the zombies clean between the eyes. ‘Bullseye!’ said Kay.

  I glance behind me to see Kay grinning, her axe through her belt and another snowball held in her hands. ‘What the fuck …?’ I said.

  Kay shrugged. ‘I’m taking joy where I can find it,’ she said and threw the snowball. I turned to see it hit the same zombie, this time square in the chest. ‘Whoop, not bad,’ she said.

  The zombies staggered closer, but I heard a splat from behind me and turned to see Kay with a face full of snow that Sean had chucked at her. ‘Not you too,’ I said. ‘For fuck’s sake, you two’ll be building bloody snowmen next. Zombies … a few feet away – focus please.’ I turned to the approaching zombies, but felt something wet hit the back of my head. ‘I’ll get you for that, Kay,’ I said without looking back and I thrust my knife into the eye of a zombie.

  Kay darted past me and buried her axe in the head of a zombie, while Sean smashed the remaining one’s head in with his crowbar. I slid my knife into my belt, bent down and gathered a hand full of snow. I threw the ball at Kay, but she dodged it and the snowball hit the side of the van. ‘Missed!’ she taunted.

  I glanced in all directions – no sign of any more zombies and I had a clear view of where Misfit had gone. I grabbed some more snow, compacting between my palms, this time throwing it at Sean. It hit his right shoulder, covering the black fabric of his coat with flakes of white. He bent down, scooped up some snow in his bare hands, forming it into a ball and threw it at me. I tried to dodge it but it just clipped my shoulder and slid off the thick leather. Another snowball hit me in the side of the head. ‘Oi!’ I shouted at Kay, scooped up some snow and ran after her. My snowball hit her in the chest, while one thrown by Sean hit her in the jaw.

  ‘Right. To the death,’ said Kay as she bent down and grabbed a handful of snow, before running after Sean.

  Soon the three of us were soaked and my purplish red fingers couldn’t take any more. ‘That’s enough,’ I said to the others, holding up my trembling hands. ‘We really shouldn’t be pissing about.’ I remembered what Misfit had said to me back in the office before we came out, that I was the only one he trusted. And here I was throwing snowballs while I should have been keeping watch.

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Sean. The three of us made our way to the back of the van. I wondered if my cheeks glowed as red as they felt, after the exertion of the snowball fight. But, as Sean climbed back up to the roof and I slumped down in the back of the van, I realised
just how cold it was and I shivered in my damp clothes. I watched as fine snowflakes began to fall.

  He appeared around the corner, Misfit, the limp body of a fox in his left hand, dripping a red trail in the white. I leapt out of the back of the van and trudged through the snow to meet him, relieved he hadn’t caught us messing about. ‘What happened to you?’ he asked, stopping as I drew up to him. ‘Your hair’s all wet.’

  ‘Zombies. We had to kill some zombies,’ I said.

  Misfit gave me a look that said, And that results in your hair getting wet, how? But he didn’t ask the question so I didn’t have to feebly answer it. At that moment I felt a thud and a splodge and shivered as some snow went down the back of my jacket. I snapped my head around to see Kay trying not to look guilty. I turned back to Misfit and bit my lip while I tried not to look guilty. I saw Misfit give a slight nod but he remained silent.

  Kay and Sean wandered over to us. ‘Good work, Misfit,’ said Sean. ‘You really have many talents, mate. Let’s get back inside. It’s bloody freezing out here.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Misfit, the dead fox leaving a tiny pool of blood on the slush at his feet. ‘Have any of you spotted anything out here?’

  ‘What like?’ I asked.

  ‘I found some footprints in the snow leading from the road to the back of the store and around to this side of the building. They weren’t there when I left,’ he said.

  ‘Zombies,’ I said. ‘Like I said we had to kill some.’

  ‘No. Not zombie tracks,’ said Misfit. ‘Zombies can’t manage walking in the snow all that well, their stiff legs can’t lift up high enough so they end up making a mess. These footprints were clean, made by someone capable of lifting their legs over the snow.’

  ‘Who the fuck …?’ said Kay.

  ‘Who do you think?’ said Sean.

  ‘Shit,’ I said.