by David Moody
Howard remembered the aimless chat he’d shared with the man he’d just beaten to death with a torch, something about the weather being colder for this time of year, about him having to clear frost off the windows of his Audi, and he was brought right back down to earth. And then he remembered the guy coughing, making some jibe about coming down with something just in time for his holidays, and the penny dropped.
‘He was sick,’ Howard said.
‘Infected,’ Charlie agreed. ‘Yeah, mate, definitely a zombie.’
‘No but earlier, when I signed him in, he was coughing. Looked really pale, bit of a fever. I remember now.’
‘So you think this is our Patient Zero?’ Charlie said. ‘There’s no one else?’
Howard nodded.
‘Christ, that’s a relief. We can relax a bit now, I suppose.’
‘Not quite. There’s still Kyle to think about.’
‘You’re right.’ Charlie’s eyes narrowed and he had a look on his face Howard didn’t quite like. He rubbed his mouth, nodded. ‘Yeah, mate, you’re right. We can’t take any chances, can we? We need to do him an’ all.’ He checked the end of his rod, wiping some blood away with his sleeve. ‘We need to do him before he does us.’
SIX
When they got back they found Veronica on one side of the room, swinging on an office chair, bottle of beer in her hand, and Giles sat at one of the long buffet tables, tapping away on his laptop and gorging on peanuts and crisps. Kyle was still sprawled out where they’d left him, ice melting over his shredded crotch.
‘The lights went down,’ Veronica said. ‘Was that something you did?’
‘It’s sorted,’ Howard said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
Charlie looked to Giles. ‘What are you doing over there, mate?’ he asked the IT guy.
‘Research, squire,’ Giles said. ‘Ears and eyes wiiide open.’ He kept tapping on his keys as he talked.
‘I thought the internet was down,’ Howard said.
‘It is. But I’m from IT. We have ways and means, you know.’
‘And what have you found?’
‘That the whole world is fucked, just in time for Christmas.’ And then he broke into song. ‘Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, but the very next day, you ate my spleen...’
He laughed, but he was the only one.
‘Definitely not the time for singing Wham songs,’ Veronica said.
‘There’s never been a better time, actually. It just occurred to me, that if what we’re seeing here gets much worse – and by all accounts it almost certainly will – then this could very well be the last Christmas for all of us.’
‘Well, you’re a cheery fucker,’ said Charlie, wheeling an office chair out of the Finance office. He’d somehow managed to get the petty cash safe onto it. Howard knew what that was for.
Charlie cleared his throat, looked to Kyle Burroughs, still comatose, and then back to Howard. ‘Mate, should we do this now or...?’
‘Wait, where is she?’ Howard said, raising his hand to Charlie.
‘Where’s who?’ Veronica said.
‘Debbie. Where’d she go?’
‘Oh, Debbie. She went to the bathroom.’
‘The bathroom. And you let her go? On her own?’
‘Yeah, why wouldn’t I?’ Veronica shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal.
‘They had a fight,’ Giles said, still tapping on his keys.
‘A fight? A fight about what?’ Charlie said.
‘We did not have a fight,’ Veronica said.
‘About Brian Boyd,’ Giles said.
‘Would you shut up?’ Veronica said. ‘Jesus!’
But everyone was looking at her, waiting for her to go on.
‘Okay, okay,’ she said. ‘But it wasn’t a fight as such, more a...’
‘Just tell us what happened,’ Howard said.
‘Debbie didn’t know that Brian was sleeping with Veronica,’ Giles said.
‘Was being the operative word here,’ Veronica said. ‘I mean, hello, the guy’s a Grade A asshole. That’s the long and short of it.’
‘And that’s when Debbie stormed off,’ Giles said.
‘Stormed is a very strong word,’ Veronica corrected. ‘More like sauntered. Yeah, she sauntered off. I’m pretty sure she was heading for the bathroom. And, anyway, what are you really doing over there?’ she said to Giles, getting up and walking over to his workstation.
Giles tried to cover his screen. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I’m doing nothing.’
But Veronica stood behind him, arms on her hips, reading whatever was on there. She started laughing. ‘Oh. My. God.’
‘What?’ Howard said. ‘What is it?’
‘He’s writing about us. About Kaplan, it’s... I think it’s a story of some sort.’
‘It’s nothing, it’s just...’
She snatched the laptop from him and walked out of reach of his grabbing hands. ‘Christ, will you just listen to this. I mean, fair play, he’s changed the names and all...’ She cleared her throat and started to read. ‘Valerie’s knees trembled as she watched him decapitate the first zombie with his katana sword. Chris looked at her and said, “you know, Val, without him, I don’t think we’d have made it through the night in one piece.” What is this shit?’
‘And you’re the guy with the sword, are you?’ Charlie asked, barely able to keep himself from laughing.
‘Check this bit out,’ Veronica continued, ‘“You are as skilled with the blade as you are with the keyboard.”’ She lowered the laptop. ‘Fucking priceless.’
‘That’s private,’ Giles said, face beaming. ‘Give it back.’
‘Why would you write such shit?’
‘To make up for his insecurities,’ Charlie suggested. ‘They’re all the same, these geeks.’
‘If you must know, I run a role-playing game club several times a week. It’s a new scenario I’ve been working on, that’s all.’
Veronica gave him back his laptop. ‘Whoa, sorry,’ she said, her voice full of mock apology. ‘That makes much more sense now.’
She and Charlie were laughing so much they could barely stay upright.
‘Sounds interesting,’ Howard said to Giles, deadly serious. ‘I used to play a bit of D-and-D, back in the day.’
‘You should come along. We’re pausing over the Christmas break now, of course, but we’ll be starting up again in early Jan.’
‘Depending on how all this turns out, of course,’ Howard said, gesturing to the windows.
‘Of course. It’s Warhammer on Tuesdays, traditional Dungeons and Dragons on Thursdays. I’m looking to start something zombie-related at weekends, so all this is happening at quite a fortuitous time, to be honest.’
‘Absolutely.’
‘This is a really interesting infection, actually. I don’t know if you’ve noticed yet, but there appears to be two strains. That’s what they’re saying online, anyway. If the infection is transmitted as the result of an open flesh wound, the victim turns relatively quickly. If they come into contact with infected saliva, though, it takes much longer for the disease to take hold. Could be several hours, by all accounts. Now that’ll add an interesting dimension to the game I’m working on.’
‘It certainly would. I’d love to get involved.’
‘Cool. Friend me on Facebook and we’ll make it happen, squire.’
By this point, Veronica and Charlie were in floods of tears. Charlie was leaning over the office chair he’d wheeled in, struggling to breathe. Veronica was standing in the middle of the room, clutching her aching chest.
And that was when Kyle Burroughs killed her.
They were all so wrapped up in themselves – Veronica and Charlie taking the piss, Howard and Giles discussing the pros and cons of table-top gaming – when Kyle took his last shuddering breath. He was back in a matter of seconds, fully reanimated by the deadly infection, lunging for Veronica, grabbing her hair and taking a bloody chunk out of her neck before she even real
ised he was anywhere near her.
Then Charlie.
He struggled to lift the petty cash safe out of the chair, but it was too late for all that. Kyle was on him in seconds. Charlie managed to fight him off but not without losing some of his arm in the process.
Howard and Giles were at the far end of the room, fighting with each other to be the first out the door. A wounded Charlie pushed between the two of them and started pulling at the handle, rattling the door in its frame. They’d locked it to stop anything outside getting in, and that few seconds delay while he tried to get the thumbprint scanner to recognise his biometric code was all it took. Kyle grabbed Charlie by the scruff of his neck and pulled him back, unfinished business. He bit through the other man’s carotid artery and sent his biometric data spraying all over what was left of the buffet.
A swipe of the fob and the door was open. Giles got out fast. Howard tried to follow, but tripped over that damn window rod thing Charlie had been using as a weapon. Kyle turned his attention to Howard and hurtled towards him, and Howard instinctively raised the window-opening tool (or whatever it was called) and, quite by chance, skewered him through the face.
Man down.
After sitting there for a couple of seconds, stunned, Howard got up, brushed himself down, then took off his uniform sweater. He used it to wipe Kyle’s (and, quite possibly, Charlie’s and Veronica’s) blood from his face, then dropped it on the floor and ran after Giles who’d already scarpered.
SEVEN
Giles had made it as far as the IT department when Howard caught up with him. ‘Thanks for your help,’ he said sarcastically.
‘I-I thought you were behind me, squire,’ Giles stammered, obviously bullshitting.
‘Yeah, well I wasn’t.’
‘No hard feelings, eh?’
Howard, flustered and sweat-soaked, didn’t have time for this. He had other things on his mind. ‘We need to find Debbie. She has to be in the building somewhere. She couldn’t have got far without my key fob.’
‘She’s zombie food, squire. Forget about her.’
Howard glared at him. ‘We are not leaving Debbie behind.’
‘Okay, okay,’ Giles said, holding his hands up. ‘Damsel in distress and all that. But how do we go about it? A top to bottom search? We take alternate floors? This place is like the Tardis. It goes on forever. There are floors I haven’t even seen yet.’
‘There’s nothing I haven’t seen,’ Howard said, a trace of smug satisfaction in his voice. ‘Follow me.’
He led Giles to his CCTV room. Giles stood back and admired the tech. ‘Nice set up,’ he said. ‘Extremely nice set up, actually. There’s some cutting-edge stuff here.’
‘I know. Now sit down and help me look for her.’
Giles dragged an office chair over and sat down beside Howard. He picked up an iPad, looked at it and then at Howard. ‘This isn’t approved kit.’
‘It’s mine.’
‘I hope you haven’t connected this to our network.’
‘What if I have? And why does it matter? The world’s gone to hell, mate. Who cares about your bloody network?’
Giles pressed the home button. ‘Die Hard? Why in heaven’s name have you been watching Die Hard, squire?’
‘Because it’s Christmas. Now put it down and focus. This is important.’
They located the feed from the cameras which covered the door to the dining room. It didn’t take long to spot Debbie. She’d slunk out a few minutes before Kyle had kicked off and had missed the carnage. Howard was relieved. He followed her from camera to camera. She snuck down a couple of corridors, went up a flight of stairs, then disappeared into the ladies toilet. He fast-forwarded the footage. She hadn’t yet left the ladies, as far as he could see.
Howard fumbled in his drawer, pulled out a pair of walkie-talkies. He blew the dust off of them, checked they were both working, then handed one to Giles, keeping the other himself. ‘I’m going to get Debbie,’ he said. ‘You watch my back on the CCTV and call me if you see anything I should know about. Got it?’
Giles nodded, looking at the walkie-talkie in his hand. ‘Old school,’ he laughed.
Howard was about to leave when Giles grabbed him.
‘Listen, squire,’ he said, ‘Maybe worth getting ourselves a Plan B here.’
‘What do you mean, Plan B?’ Howard said. If he was honest, he wasn’t even sure they had a Plan A.
‘Well, I know we’re safe in here and all that, but they said the same about the mall in Dawn of the Dead and look what happened there. I mean, maybe we should have an escape route mapped out. Just in case we have to leave Kaplan in a hurry, yeah?’
It wasn’t the worst idea Howard had ever heard, in fact it made a lot of sense. He’d unlock a line of doors on the West side of the building on the way to the toilets. God knows, he really didn’t want to leave Kaplan, but it wouldn’t hurt to at least have the option if it came down to it.
He wasn’t just thinking about himself anymore, after all. There was Debbie to consider, too.
And she really needed him right now.
◆◆◆
Howard stood outside the toilet, feeling decidedly nervous, all of a sudden. Terrified, in fact. Christ, he thought, it’s the zombie apocalypse outside, and I’m more frightened about talking to Debbie than anything. He hadn’t spoken to her much before, not more than a couple of abrupt words, anyway. He didn’t know what he was going to say, or how he was going to say it. His legs felt like lead.
He barged into the room, doing everything he could to plump himself up and look like the big man he most definitely wasn’t, but then he stopped and rushed to her side. She was on her knees in one of the cubicles, throwing up. He knocked the open door, not sure what else he should do.
‘Who is it?’ she said. Her voice was distorted and strangely amplified by the porcelain bowl. She tried to look around in the confined space, one hand holding her hair away from her face.
‘It’s me, Howard,’ he said.
‘Who?’ She looked around fully this time.
‘Howard from security, remember?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ she said, then turned back to the toilet and threw up again, an uncomfortably dark mix of blood and puke spurting out of her mouth.
‘It’s probably just nerves,’ Howard said, doing his best to reassure her, ‘the vomit, I mean. I’ve been feeling a little queasy myself, truth be told. Have you eaten something that didn’t agree with you? There was a plate of vol au vents back there that looked like they’d gone off. Or it could have been the fish. Did you have any of the fish?’
‘Will you stop talking about food,’ she said, and then retched into the pan. It sounded painful. It also sounded like she’d got nothing left to throw up.
Debbie slumped back and shuffled herself around. Even now Howard thought she looked amazing. So beautiful. So vulnerable.
Howard grabbed a few paper towels, ran them under the tap then passed them over to her. ‘Here. You’ve got sick on your chin.’
‘Thanks, Howard,’ she said, almost managing a smile.
‘Feeling better now?’
‘I think so. Like you said, it’s probably just nerves. That and the booze.’
‘It’s been quite a night.’
‘It’s not over yet.’
He looked at her, and she looked at him, and for a few long seconds neither seemed to know quite what to say to the other. ‘What are we like, Debbie? Here we are with the keys to a brand new state-of-the-art multi-million pound building, and we end up sitting in the toilet.’
She smiled at him, and it melted his heart.
‘Are there better places to go?’
‘What, better than the toilet? I should say so.’ He took his precious fob from his pocket. ‘This is literally the key to the kingdom. No one’s getting in or out of this place without this. They’ll have to get through me first.’
‘That’s pretty impressive. That little thing controls everything?’
&nbs
p; ‘Every single lock.’
‘Wow. They must have some trust in you.’
Howard felt ten feet tall. ‘I don’t like to brag, but most people have to share these. I get my own.’
His walkie-talkie buzzed, Giles’ voice coming through causing Debbie to jump.
Red Five to Gold Leader, the IT guy said. Come in, over.
‘Who’s that?’ Debbie asked.
‘Nobody,’ Howard snapped, annoyed by the interruption. He reached for the two-way, pressing the button and speaking into it. ‘Kinda busy here, Giles,’ he said. ‘What do you want?’
Thought I saw something, he breathed. And I’ll be honest, squire, I’m kinda bricking it on my own up here. I mean, I know you probably want to... well, you know... do the deed with Debbie and all. But do you think you’ll be long?
Howard sighed, shook his head. Talk about ruining the moment. ‘We’re on our way,’ he said, helping Debbie to her feet. ‘Just keep your eyes on those cameras and let me know if you see anything else.’
◆◆◆
Giles didn’t want to let them in at first. Howard banged the door, calling to him but the IT guy pointed to the walkie-talkie even though Howard knew he could damn well hear him without it. Howard lifted the walkie-talkie, pressed its button. ‘Just let us in,’ he said, angrily.
They’re still out there, over, Giles replied. Sorry, squire. Over.
‘I thought you could open any lock?’ Debbie said, standing just behind him.
‘I can, but that silly sod’s got a chair wedged under the handle. I don’t want to force it and break it.’ He hammered again, this time not bothering with the walkie-talkie. ‘Giles, open the bloody door.’
Eventually Giles obliged and let them in. He sat down at Howard’s desk and watched disapprovingly as Howard fussed around Debbie, checking she was warm enough, settling her down on a makeshift bed made from two chairs turned to face each other, and leaving her with a cup of coffee and his iPad. ‘I used to have a thing for Bruce Willis,’ Debbie told him, and he almost took off his polo shirt there and then to show her his Die Hard vest but didn’t want to risk it in case he had to go out again.
