Year of the Zombie [Anthology]

by David Moody

  ‘Keep driving,’ Jen muttered.

  Gareth accelerated, leaving the prostitutes to float on to the next car that showed interest.

  ‘We’re going to have to get someone,’ Gareth said.

  ‘So far, our choices have been tramps, addicts or prostitutes. Ideal candidates for blood poisoning, AIDs or syphilis. You want to deal with that too on top of everything else?’

  Gareth banged his hand on the steering wheel, glancing in the rear view mirror at the dazed, panting thing that his daughter had become. Eyes back on the road, Gareth saw something red and white sprayed over the road. Pulling over, he stepped out of the car before Jen could ask what he was doing.

  In the repetitive flash of the hazard lights, Gareth leant over the animal carcass. He guessed, from the size and colour, it had been a dog earlier in the day. Holding his breath, Gareth started to scoop up the roadkill in to his hands. Half of it remained fused into the tarmac, but the hind half came away in his hands.

  Waddling awkwardly to the car, Gareth attempted to open the back door. The interior light came on, revealing how far from his daughter the creature in the back seat had become. Small black veins or arteries had appeared, crawling from out under Ana’s hairline. Her once chubby cheeks had vanished, replaced by painfully angular cheekbones, her baby fat a distant memory. Her skin was a greyish-white, apart from around her mouth, which had taken on a pinkish hue, stained from the constant bloodletting. Gareth looked into Ana’s eyes, trying to find some semblance of his daughter, but all he could see was a dazed animal staring back at him with blood shot eyes.

  After a moment’s hesitation Gareth held the dead thing towards Ana.

  Ana’s head rolled forward, and for a brief moment Gareth’s hopes were raised. Ana’s nostrils flared.

  ‘Christ, Gareth…’ Jen said turning her head back to the road.

  Ana turned her head away from the offering.

  ‘Ana, c’mon love, you’ve got to eat something. You’ll be ill otherwise. Please, love, for Daddy. Please.’

  Gareth could hear Jen weeping softly in the front of the car. Looking back at his daughter, he could see she was making no progress. Gareth threw what was left of the carcass back onto the side of the road. Getting back in the driver’s seat, Gareth hesitated before gripping the wheel, his hands still covered in gore. Without missing a beat, Jen handed him a baby wipe.

  Gareth began to turn the key in the ignition, but stopped.

  ‘It’s riskier, but if we’re gonna feed her something that won’t end up killing her or making her worse, we should try to do it in the day.’

  Gareth stared at his hands on the steering wheel, waiting for Jen to reply.

  The interior light faded as she exhaled.

  ‘Let’s go home.’

  ELEVEN

  Ten minutes away from home, Jen grasped Gareth’s hand on the gearstick. He was about to ask her what the matter was when he saw the lone figure lurching by the side of the road.

  A quick glance around assured Gareth that they were unlikely to have any interruptions. Without exchanging a word, Gareth pulled over alongside the drunken teenage boy. Jen wound the window down.

  ‘Bit late to be walking by yourself?’ she said.

  ‘Silly cow cheated on me at a party…’

  ‘You shouldn’t be walking in your state, we can give you a lift.’ She smiled at him reassuringly.

  ‘S’alright…’ the teen said, shaking his head.

  ‘It’s dangerous out at this time of night.’

  Looking in the backseat, the teen saw the apparently sleeping Ana. He cast his gaze back to Jen and Gareth in the front seat. He tried to carry out some drunken risk assessment in his booze-addled head before shrugging and climbing into the back seat.

  Carefully, Gareth indicated and the car pulled off. Moments passed silently, the teen lulled into an alcohol assisted coma by the gentle sound of the tyres on the road.

  Gareth remained silent, watching in the rear view mirror.

  ‘Cheers mate. Bit past her bedtime?’ the teen managed, patting the back of Gareth’s backrest.

  Gareth hit the brakes suddenly, sending the teen crashing into the back of Jen’s seat.

  The teen bounced back into his seat, hands flying to his face.

  ‘Guh, dou fuhk-?’ he spat through a bloody nose.

  While Jen held her head and bent forward, Gareth leaned over and unfastened Ana’s seat belt.

  Ana looked down at her loose belt. Looked over at the bleeding teen. And then towards her father.

  Weakly, Gareth nodded his consent.

  Ana leapt out of her chair and onto the teen. Jen buried her face into her hands, unable to watch.

  The car began to rock. Gareth continued to watch in the mirror as his daughter began to eat the boy’s face.

  TWELVE

  An exhausted Ana rested her head on Gareth’s shoulder as he carried her up the stairs. Gareth had performed this action hundreds of time, but the creature in his arms felt totally alien to him now.

  Ana smiled and a dribble of blood escaped her mouth, trickling down Gareth’s creased white shirt.

  ◆◆◆

  Just a short distance outside of the town limits, a fox found a larger than usual meal by the side of the road.

  Warily, the vermin approached his meal, sniffing cautiously at the spilled intestines on the tarmac.

  Partway through his main course, the fox abandoned chewing on the teenage boy’s nasal cartilage as his feast started to move.

  The fox had long-since scarpered into the undergrowth by the time the dead boy lurched towards the distant lights of the town.

  THIRTEEN

  Gareth woke again to the raucous sound coming from Ana’s bedroom. His left eye hadn’t quite woken up yet, but through his right he could see that wherever Jen was, she wasn’t next to him, where he expected.

  Rolling out of bed, Gareth crept to Ana’s bedroom, the red glow from the night light shining onto the landing. He looked in through a crack in the door and saw his daughter thrashing on the bed, straining against the bungee cables that bound her.

  Exhaling wearily, Gareth trudged down the stairs and peered through the window to see his wife out on the driveway. Jen was scrubbing the back seat of the car with baby wipes. Next to her, lay a carrier bag filled with used wipes stained various shades of red.

  He thought about making his presence known to her, but the noises from upstairs distracted him.

  He realised that if he was to have any chance of surviving another day of this life he needed caffeine. A lot of caffeine.

  Gareth was sat at the table nursing a cup of tea, when Jen came into the kitchen. She looked up at the ceiling, listening to the ruckus being made upstairs.

  ‘Well that didn’t satisfy her for long.’

  ‘I’m feeling a bit better, you can probably drain a pint of me after I’ve finished my tea,’ Gareth said.

  ‘That’ll keep her occupied for all of twenty minutes.’

  ‘Fine, we’ll load up the car and try and grab somebody early before there are too many people on the roads.’

  ‘What are we going to do, feed that thing upstairs three people a day?’

  ‘That thing is your daughter. It’s our daughter.’

  ‘That boy she ate was someone’s son.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘Gareth! How—’

  ‘Jen, I do not care. I care about Ana, I care about our family.’

  ‘Look maybe we should try the doctor’s again, tell them that we know that blood, that flesh helps, they may—’

  ‘We tell them that we’ve fed her a kid?’

  ‘No we simply tell them that she drank some of our blood and—’

  ‘The doctors didn’t work, the hospitals didn’t work, the medicine didn’t work. This works. We keep going until she’s better.’

  ‘We can’t let her kill.’

  ‘We’re not letting her, we’re helping her kill.’

  �
�No, no we didn’t—’

  ‘Jen, you lured the boy into the car and I let Ana loose. We did that. We killed that boy just as much as Ana did, if not more. She just fed. And it worked. So, we get in the car. We find someone for Ana. We get them. And we keep going. We keep going until our daughter is better. We worry about everything else after, after she is better.’

  ‘We’ve got to stop this.’

  ‘Stop this?’

  ‘Stop her.’

  ‘Stop her? Say it.’

  ‘I’m saying we’ve got to stop her.’

  ‘Don’t say stop her. Say what you mean!’

  ‘Kill her.’

  Gareth stared at his wife. She met his gaze.

  His eyes stung as he contemplated what the woman in front of him was suggesting. He barely knew his daughter anymore, and now he could hardly recognise the exhausted shell of a woman who faced him.

  ‘That’s not Ana anymore, Gareth. You know it’s not.’

  Gareth opened his mouth to challenge her. A thousand thoughts rushed through his brain, but no sound came.

  ‘Gareth, I’m telling you, that’s not my baby up there. I know it. Deep down, you know it too. Ana was taken from us a long time ago, and we’ve just been denying it all this time.’

  Gareth couldn’t look at his wife any longer, instead he stared at the mug in his hands. Tears flowed freely now, as he heard the kitchen drawer open. Looking up, he saw Jen with the kitchen knife in her hands, holding it as if it were a foreign object.

  Jen and Gareth crept up the stairs together, passed birthday photos of Ana, passed photos of Jen (with bump), passed wedding photos. The usual floorboard creaks were drowned out by the sound of Ana crashing about.

  Opening the door, Gareth and Jen saw that one of the bungee cords had come loose. Ana thrashed on the bed wildly.

  Jen slumped, the tension from her shoulders ebbed away. She seemed to almost lose a foot in height. A low moan, unrecognisable as a human sound, escaped her lips.

  ‘I can’t...’ was all she managed to say.

  Gareth understood. It wasn’t easy to talk about killing your only child, but it was harder still to carry out the act. Jen was telling herself that the creature in front of them wasn’t their daughter, but the creature in front of them still wore Ana’s face. A cruel parody of her face, but still undeniably recognisable as Ana.

  Without looking to see where Gareth was, Jen fell backwards into his arms.

  He held her. He understood why Jen believed that they had to kill Ana. He knew that if they were to continue down this path, Ana would just consume and consume and consume. He knew that he would be bringing pain and heartbreak to countless other families just to keep his daughter fed.

  Gareth rested his head against Jen’s and held out his left hand.

  Jen looked up at Gareth’s face for answers.

  Eyes closed, Gareth gave a barely perceptible nod.

  Jen understood that Gareth would do what needed to be done.

  She placed the knife in his hand. Gareth wrapped his fingers around the handle.

  Gareth smiled sadly at his wife.

  Gripping Jen’s hair with his right hand, he brought the knife quickly and deeply across her throat.

  Gareth understood. Gareth understood that Jen didn’t love Ana as much as he did. Gareth knew that what Jen wanted to do was the logical thing, but Gareth knew that he would do anything, anything for his daughter. Gareth knew he could kill for Ana, he knew it when he had killed that thing in the playground. He had felt nothing as Ana had bitten, eaten and consumed that teenage boy. No remorse, just an inkling of hope, hope that this meal would be the one that brought his daughter back to him.

  He realised he must have hit a vein/artery/ God-knows-what as blood sprayed out from his wife’s throat in almost comical proportions, coating the Disney Princess walls, coating the Disney Princess bed sheets and landing on Ana’s face.

  Ana, for a brief moment, went rigid.

  A primal bloodlust racked her body, causing to her flail violently, the bungee cords coming loose.

  Gareth let his wife drop to the ground as Ana leapt at the source of the blood.

  Swiftly he moved behind the door, pulling it closed and bolting it.

  Sinking to the ground, he listened to his family eat itself.

  EPILOGUE

  It’s been five days since we killed Jen.

  I managed to make her last almost three days.

  I don’t know whether there are any red flags if you google “how to drain a human body”, but I googled it anyway. We had most of the implements in the house and I stored the blood in jars and washed out milk bottles in the fridge.

  On the third day Ana was sick on the blood, so I decided to get a new source.

  We kept Jen in the main bathroom. I rarely used it anyway. I was worried that if I tried to get rid of what was left of her body, what Ana hadn’t devoured, I’d get caught and then Ana would be alone. That terrifies me more than anything.

  Three days ago I grabbed another body. It only lasted two days as it was a kid, but Ana didn’t get ill this time. When it was used up we put it in the bathroom with Jen.

  People have started to notice the missing persons. You can feel it.

  Posters have been put up around town.

  I overheard someone saying the Police are starting to go door to door.

  I think people are starting to wonder where Jen’s got to. The neighbours exchange nervous glances with each other when they see me.

  Last night I packed the car with Ana’s and my belongings. We’re ready to go at a moment’s notice.

  ◆◆◆

  Ana’s starting to get agitated again. She’s docile for shorter and shorter periods of time now. If I can get more blood, more flesh, I know she’ll get better.

  We’re going to visit Mum and Dad back in the Midlands. They’ve been wanting us to visit for months. Their place is nicely secluded, off the beaten track.

  I can’t risk getting another body from round here.

  We can’t risk staying in the house any longer.

  The smell is getting worse and...

  And Jen has started to move.

  I killed my wife five days ago and what’s left of her is starting to move again.

  She’ll have to fend for herself. There’s no way I can cope with two mouths to feed.

  RIDE THE SERPENTINE

  Andre Duza

  A Serpentine Films Production in Association with the Martin Stone Show…

  Video

  A circular stage seemingly afloat in a sea of heads and shoulders. Hysterical feminine adulation directed toward the trio of lanky, androgynous rock stars power-posing at centre stage. Pyrotechnics erupt behind the men. The crowd approves. Their cheers are deafening.

  A montage of concert venues as a tour bus arrives. Fans waiting in parking lots. They run screaming alongside the bus.

  Narrator (Voice-over): What started out as three friends passing the time at a local band camp, became one of the most influential rock bands of a generation. In mid-to-late ’80s nobody was bigger than Serpentine.

  Concerts. Backstage. Champagne celebrations. Wet T-shirts. Fake tits. Serpentine at the number one spot on the Billboard Music Charts. Awards shows.

  Narrator: They filled stadiums and performed to sell-out crowds. They lived at the top of the charts and garnered award after award.

  Drugs. Booze. Fast women. Drunken performances.

  Narrator: But a life of excess eventually took its toll on the trio and the band once named the most influential rock group in the last decade officially split in 1991.

  The group, older now, rocks out on a small, intimate stage in a packed nightclub. The crowd goes nuts.

  Narrator: Decades of hard feelings were put aside when the boys came together for a charity event in early 2014. Reaction from the crowd was overwhelmingly positive and it quickly became obvious that the time was right for a comeback. A documentary was planned to help kick off the re
turn of Serpentine. The film would chronicle the daily lives of the band mates while they worked on their new album.

  An ambush of newspaper headlines dated 9/6/2014: THE DEAD WALK! Chaos in the streets. The breakdown of society via security camera footage from around the world.

  Narrator: But fate had other plans…

  People fighting back against the dead. Landfills full of bodies. The evolution of settlements. The Martin Stone Show.

  Narrator: What started as a peek into the lives of three friends who became rock Gods, has evolved into a video diary chronicling humanity’s struggle to survive, and Rock ‘n’ Roll’s place in the resurrection of our once great society.

  A title fades into view…

  Ride the Serpentine! A Rockumentary

  Video:

  Friday, May 17, 2016

  The interior of a modified van. All black. Plush, leather seating fit for a private jet in front. The rear seating has been removed, giving the illusion of space. A leather bench spans the length of one side. A console reminiscent of a newsvan embedded in the opposite wall. A small monitor in the centre. A short counter below. Several boxes stacked against the back doors. A duo of guitar cases rest against the boxes. Tinted windows dim the natural light. ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution’ by AC/DC blasts from the speakers.

  A heavily inked Viking of a man (Jules Yeager, 51) is seated on the bench. A living stick-figure with a face full of wisdom (James ‘Holly’ Hollister, 50) behind the wheel. An effeminate, seemingly ageless pretty boy with long dark hair and sharp features (Graeme ‘Gramps’ Gunz, 48) riding shotgun.

  Jules blindly fingers an acoustic guitar, his eyes glued to the blank monitor across from him. Graeme is equally focused on the scenery outside the passenger-side window.

  Graeme: These backroads are all starting to look the same.