by Mark Tufo
He had a point there. The old fellow who propped up the end of the bar at weekends was missing. Ernest couldn’t remember his name, Dennis or David, something like that. Somehow he doubted that he’d be getting down with the kids. That reminded him, he hadn’t seen the guy’s wife for weeks; he wondered if she had passed away.
He scanned the bar and saw that Scary Mary was missing too. She propped up the other end of the bar and never missed a night.
“I wonder where Mary is. I hope she isn’t at my house.”
A foil packet had appeared in the palm of Jeff’s trembling hand. He had four white caplets in his hand already and was busy popping the rest out. “Don’t talk daft, why would she be at your place? The fat bitch will probably be in bed with an electric blanket over her head.” He threw the caplets in his mouth and swallowed them down with the last dregs of his beer. “And that is where I should be tonight.”
“In Scary Mary’s bed?”
“No, you fucking unfunny bastard, I mean in my bed.”
“So why aren’t you?”
He caught sight of Desmond lip dancing with the landlady and turned away, bloody hell! It looked like he was trying to eat her. That sort of nonsense belonged out of sight. It was putting him right off his beer.
“Because it’s Friday night, of course,” Jeff replied. “It’s what we’ve always done ever since we left school, at least it was until you got that bloody job.”
“What are you on about? I’ve had the job at the minimarket for the past six years.”
Jeff frowned. “Are you sure? It only feels like a week to me.” He stood up and leaned on the table. “I think I’d better get some fresh air, I don’t feel so good.”
Ernest watched his mate stagger over to the pub door. Maybe he ought to walk the lad home, there was definitely something up with him tonight and it wasn’t the beer.
He picked up his own glass; he didn’t really want it but there was no way that he was going to let it go to waste. He was determined to drink the bloody stuff just for the principle.
The glass slipped through his fingers when an ear-piercing scream shattered the silence. He looked around wildly for the source. His dazed eyes stopped at the bar and refused to move. This could not be happening. Desmond still held the woman tight, but the embrace was no longer a tender one.
She struggled like a fish on the end of a line as he lifted her by the neck off the carpet. Desmond growled, then bit into her face and tore off a lump of flesh; he spat the piece out and dived back in for more.
Ernest’s stomach churned and he felt hot bile climbing up his throat. No way could this be real. It had to be someone’s idea of a very sick joke.
The screamer let out another blast and Ernest discovered that Desmond wasn’t the only freak in the Horse and Jockey that evening. He finally tore his gaze away from the big man crunching into the still woman’s exposed skull as if it was a fucking apple and looked over to the dartboard.
Steve Reynolds had pinned a young blonde girl against the wall. She was the screamer. Both her hands were against his head. She desperately tried to keep his snapping jaws away from her own face.
Ernest stood up. “What the fuck are you doing?” he screamed.
The crazed man didn’t react, but Desmond did. He dropped the woman’s body and groaned aloud.
Ernest could see that the girl’s strength was beginning to fail. He looked around the empty pub, frantically searching for somebody else who could help the poor girl. There was only him and the boy in the bright shirt. That kid would be no use, he was too busy huddled in the corner of the games room, clutching a pool cue as if it were a teddy bear.
He pulled himself out of the seat while watching that man behind the bar. Des kept trying to reach Ernest, not yet realizing that the now scarlet-painted bar was in his way. He blinked and muttered a short prayer before he picked up a beer bottle left on the next table. He ran towards the dartboard and smashed it into the back of Reynolds’s head.
The girl screamed even louder as shards of broken glass showered her face. The bottle had little effect – if anything, it helped to push the man closer to the girl.
“Don’t just sit there,” Ernest shouted at the boy. “Fucking get over here and help me.”
The young lad didn’t even move his sodding head; he was hunched over his shoes, frantically grabbing at something. Ernest moaned. What was he supposed to fucking do now? In frustration and panic, he grabbed the back of Steve’s collar and tried to pull him off the girl, but it was useless. It was like trying to pull a pit-bull off a puppy.
“Duck!”
Ernest spun around. The boy now stood next to him, swinging a weighted sock around his head.
“Move it, Granddad.”
Ernest let go of the man and bobbed down. He winced at the sharp crack that the improvised weapon made as it impacted against the side of Steve’s head. The man fell to the floor like a sack of bricks. Ernest scurried back before the dark grey slop dribbling from the large dent in Steve’s head reached his fingers.
“Oh Jesus fuck! What the bloody hell’s wrong with him?” moaned the girl. She growled before swinging her foot into the side of the man’s head. “That’s for trying to fucking bite me, you freaky bastard.”
The boy offered his hand; Ernest took it and hauled himself off the floor. “Thanks,” he muttered. “I’m Ernest.”
“Don’t thank me yet, Granddad, we ain’t done just yet.”
Desmond had managed to get out through the serving hatch and was headed straight for them. The boy forced a pool cue into Ernest’s hands.
“Here you go, Granddad, now it’s your turn.”
He looked stupidly at the pool cue, then jerked his head up and watched the huge pile of meat shamble towards them. What the bloody hell was he supposed to do with this? He might as well be armed with a fucking toothpick.
Desmond clacked his jaws together. It sounded like a mousetrap springing shut. Desmond moaned even louder.
“Don’t just fucking stand there, you gormless bastard! Stab the cunt!”
“I can’t!” Ernest cried. “I’m no murderer.”
The boy pulled Ernest back from Desmond’s grasping hands. “It’s self-defense, just look at him, man, he wants to kill you!”
Ernest thought of all those times when people like Des and Steve knocked the shit out of him when he was younger. He remembered all the times when he visibly shook at the sight of them. He gripped the shaft tight with both hands, then charged at Desmond. The big man made no attempt to dodge; it was almost like he welcomed death. Ernest was only too happy to oblige. He drove the point up through the man’s jaw and deep into Desmond’s brain. It surprised him just how easy the cue went in; there was hardly any resistance, almost like pushing a steak knife through a hot Sunday joint.
“Oh God, please take me home, Adrian,” said the girl.
The boy took her hand then led her towards the exit. He looked back at Ernest.
“Are you coming or what?”
“What have I just done?”
“What you had to,” replied the boy. “Now come on, pull yourself together.”
Ernest’s home away from home now resembled an abattoir. Blood running from Desmond’s head pooled around the man’s ear. He watched the last blob of soap drop off the dead man’s lug and land in the scarlet fluid. Ernest distantly wondered why none of this absolute horror had affected his own sanity. Should he not be on his knees about now, tearing out his hair and thrusting his fist into his open mouth to muffle his shrieking?
“Granddad. Are you just going to stand there? We have to shift it.”
Ernest ran over to the bar.
“What the hell are you doing, old man?”
“What do you think I’m doing? We need to phone the police!”
The boy sighed. “Don’t you think I’ve already tried that? There’s no signal.” He pushed past Ernest and snatched the phone off the wall beside the bar. He placed the receiver to his ear, before
nodding to himself. “It’s dead, just like my mobile.”
Ernest picked up the phone and held it to his ear; the resounding silence shocked him more than killing Desmond.
“Are you ready now?”
He slowly nodded, thinking back to how this irritating kid had first reacted when this madness first started. Maybe it just took some people a bit longer to respond. Ernest then glanced over at his table, still expecting Jeff to be slumped in his chair. He then remembered that Jeff had said he was going home. Bloody hell, he hoped that he had managed to get home safely.
Chapter Four
Dennis Flynn took his time to walk back into his warm living room. He held the cup of hot chocolate with both hands, trying to keep it steady, not wanting to spill any of it; he’d only just had this thing cleaned. He really should have poured some of the hot liquid into the sink before leaving the kitchen. It was only the surface tension that stopped the stuff from slopping over the sides and onto the carpet. “You could have at least dug out a saucer,” he muttered.
He headed straight for his old coffee table, pleased to discover that despite the movement, not one drop had dribbled down the sides. He was getting better at this. Then again, he’d always been blessed with a pair of steady hands. He leaned over the table and gently placed his cup down on the cork mat.
His favourite chair now beckoned. He collapsed into the soft leather and stared at his concoction beside him, wondering if he dared to taste this one. The chances that this drink tasted just as vile as the last one that he’d thrown down the sink were very high. He could have tried it out whilst still in the kitchen, but where was the fun, suspense, and potential danger in doing that?
Dennis considered himself to be a logical and exact man. Making a hot chocolate should have been as difficult as putting on a hat. He had followed the instructions on the side of the box accurately, and yet the stuff still tasted just horrible. He came to the conclusion that the makers of this stuff had no idea how proper hot chocolate should taste. Dennis would just have to experiment with different quantities. All he wanted was to taste a hot chocolate like his late Ethel used to make for him every night. Was that too much to ask for? Then again, his dead wife had never known the meaning of the word ‘exact’. Knowing his absent-minded, now dead wife, she probably would not have even read the instructions on the side of the tin.
He gazed with annoyance at the cup, noting a dribble had run down the side. It looked the same as the cups that she used to make for him. He had even got the shade right with this one. Maybe he should just console himself with that one fact. It was more of a sense of carrying on the routine than anything else.
Dennis turned his attention to the old television which stood in the corner of the room. The test card flickering on the screen had still not lifted. He hadn’t seen the test card in years. Still, there it was, and Dennis knew that it wasn’t going away anytime soon. Dennis also knew that if he chose to try his radio again, only white noise would greet his ears.
His entertainment options might be limited but that didn’t really bother Dennis; he’d been telling himself that he’d been spending far too much time in front of the idiot box anyway. Besides, the crap showing on the box was mild compared to his one remaining option. He picked up his binoculars, brought them to his eyes, and fiddled with the focus wheel to bring the garden over the road into sharp clarity.
The street next to the garden was quiet now. It appeared that Mr. Harding and the other young chap had now wandered out of view, probably to hunt for more panicking residents.
He remembered hearing the Hardings close their front door a few hours ago. His annoying neighbours, Eileen and Donald, were about to embark on their usual walk around the edge of the housing estate. The couple had been following this stupid routine for almost twenty years now, every single night at eight o’clock on the dot.
Watching them play out their sweet, sugar spun life had been irritating Dennis for years. Their happy-go-lucky outlook on life made Dennis physically retch. There had been countless times when he had hoped that at least one of the scrotes in Breakspear would decide to knock the crap out of them or, even better, rape and murder the pair of them. Yet, somehow, they just carried on following their rainbow-coloured lives, never getting beaten up, not returning home to discover someone had broken into their house and crapped on their bed, and never suffering verbal abuse from any of the kids.
Anyone else stupid enough to try a trick like that wouldn’t have lasted a single night. Wandering around the edge of the estate after the sun had gone down was the same as asking for pain. They would either have testicles the size of footballs or be mentally disturbed.
Their unbroken luck had drastically changed that night, when the husband noticed a young, blond-haired youth stumble over a low wall opposite their house and hit the ground hard. Of course, the pair of the idiots had rushed over the road to investigate, to see if they could be of any assistance. Dennis had watched the whole drama unfold through his new binoculars. It almost felt as though he was standing right next to Donald Harding.
Just by looking at the face of that young man, lying on the ground, Dennis knew that the guy had passed on. He’d seen enough corpses in his previous career to know what a dead person looked like. He had trouble containing his excitement when the cadaver opened his eyes. The youth snapped out his arm and grabbed Donald’s ankle. Those two good Samaritans were now in serious trouble. The corpse pulled Donald down, grabbed his hair, and bit a large chunk of meat out of the side of his neck.
Donald smacked into the pavement with his life fluid bubbling out of his body like a river before disappearing down the gutter. The man’s poor wife had shrieked like a banshee. It must have finally dawned on the silly bitch that their neighborhood was not made from fluffy white clouds and cute cartoon bunnies. Dennis had seen that the only response to her cries for help was the twitching of curtains. He suspected that half the houses on the road would have locked their doors when she had started up her scream motor.
Her husband’s body had started to jerk and twitch a few minutes later. The woman hadn’t noticed. She was too busy trying to stay away from the other man. Dennis grinned in disbelief when Donald’s hands began to spasmodically open and close. For Dennis, a man so intimate with death, this was the most exciting event of his life. What was happening here? The dead stayed dead, they did not come back to life. Donald should not have been able to do that – he had bled out like a stuck pig – that man was deader than dead. Despite the impossibility of the situation, that dead man had gotten back on his feet. He wasn’t that steady on them, but he was still moving about.
The whole situation got more interesting as each moment passed. The woman had yet to notice that her darling husband had just come back to life. The hysterical woman’s eyes hadn’t left the other man. Dennis thought that all his birthdays had come at once when both men lunged for the woman from opposite sides. She didn’t stand a chance. The men wrestled the screaming woman to the ground, then pulled off her arms like an old rag doll and proceeded to tear out lumps of flesh from her legs and chest. It took her a while to stop screaming.
The walking dead men left the woman’s body slumped against a lamppost on the other side of the street. It had been there for some time and not one person had passed it, save for a mongrel dog who rushed past, stopped, then pissed on the body before running off. Hey left arm lay in the middle of the road, across a faded white line, where the men had dropped it. Most of the road marking was hidden under a congealed puddle of blood.
Dennis hadn’t seen what happened to the rest of the arm; he just assumed that the men had taken it with them. Their behavior brought up so many infuriating questions, aside from the obvious – how did the dead come to return? Why had they not finished eating the woman? Why had they left that arm in the road? He so hated mysteries.
Walking away the fun-packed scenario happening outside his living-room window had been one of the hardest tasks that he had ever undertaken, b
ut Dennis had no other choice. Just as the two men were getting up, he suddenly remembered that he had left a pan full of boiling potatoes on the hob. He could let them boil dry, but it would take him hours to clean the pan.
Once he turned off the heat, Dennis had attempted to phone the police. He had no real desire to see them anywhere around but he had to keep up appearances, just in case anybody was watching his movements. Predictably, the line was dead. It didn’t take a complete idiot to figure out that all the events were connected. Something truly earth shattering was happening right here, on his doorstep. Dennis was so excited.
He quickly glanced at the wall clock above the television and saw that it had been seven minutes since those two had mauled the old bag. He zeroed in on her face, eager to see if his prediction would happen. The old man had come back quickly but he had only sustained a single bite. The woman resembled a chewed-up rump steak. Even so, he believed that she’d still reanimate.
When, after another couple of minutes, her facial muscles started to twitch followed by the woman opening her eyes, Dennis whooped and gave himself a high five. He kept watching, noting that at no point did she realize that both her arms were no longer attached.
Dead people with no sense of their previous life and no realization of pain were now shuffling around the estate, looking for other residents to eat. Dennis was so happy. His dull nights had become a great deal more interesting.
His dull nights had already been livened up a couple of days ago, but nothing so exciting as biological automatons killing and eating anyone who was stupid enough to stray too close to them. Dennis had noticed, quite by accident, that the young woman who lived opposite his house had taken to stripping off her clothes in front of the bedroom window. He couldn’t remember her name; his wife would have known her name, as well as her parent’s names, as well as her full life history. He did wonder who she was trying to impress. It was no accident; he wasn’t that naïve; the slow erotic dancing gave that fact away.
