by Ian Woodhead
There was nothing in there now, he was sure of it, apart from the floating detritus bashing against the jetty. “Horrible filthy creatures,” he muttered, walking back to the buildings.
Kenny’s eyes dropped to his feet. He saw a trail of wet footprints leading from the four paint tins standing on the first step of a metal fire escape. “Oh, because I don’t appreciate irony?” He had put those paint tins on the step last night. Kenny’d thought he had been such a clever boy. After filling the tins with water from the docks, he’d stepped over them and continued up the steps to sleep in the building overlooking the water. The fact that he had kneeled on the wooden dock and leaned into the water in order to fill the tins left him feeling cold. If that thing had been just under the water, he wouldn’t have stood a chance.
His genius idea had worked alright though; his perimeter alarm had not been tripped. Even so, Kenny hadn’t had a wink of sleep last night. It wasn’t for lack of trying, nor was it because he didn’t feel safe. Diane had left him the gun last night before returning to civilization. His lack of rest was something else that he blamed on the drugs.
He pulled open the door and hurried inside the decrepit shack, eager to get away from the cold air. Kenny hated this weather. The coldness settled in his chest, causing him to cough. He slammed the door shut and leaned back, checking on the time. With luck, his sister should be here in another five minutes.
The city’s residential gates had opened ten minutes ago. It would take her that long just to squeeze through the thousands of commuters, all heading towards their crappy jobs in the commercial and industrial zones. “Five minutes isn’t even enough time to eat a bacon sandwich.”
Kenny walked over to the single window and gazed out, looking to the left of his position, trying to catch sight of his sister. The metal fence surrounding the docks shouldn’t prove to be much of a deterrent to Diane; she was a better climber than he was. Close to where he’d climbed over, Kenny noticed the remains of a café. Judging from the dozens of floorboards nailed over the windows and door, he didn’t think it would be opening any time soon.
“Shooter’s café,” he said. He remembered going in there, years ago, way before any of this shit went down. Kenny recalled that the place had been packed with dockworkers and men who lived on the boats permanently anchored to the jetties. Back then, Kenny had been trying to make ends meet, taking any and every job.
Leaving his own citystate had, at the time, seemed like the only option left to him. Kenny had believed that the capital was the only place to flee to; for the first time in a decade, his home city had formed an alliance with the capital after the larger citystate between them had declared war on the capital. Kenny couldn’t give a shit about the politics of the situation, only that the alliance meant that he would be able to live in the capital without the security services shooting him as an illegal alien. It also meant that his wife of twelve years would never be able to find him. Not that Kenny believed she would, considering she had just divorced him and moved in with her mother.
The bitch had left him with a house he could no longer afford, unpaid bills that would have put Kenny in prison for the rest of his life and, to put icing on the cake of shit, the company that he worked for had just gone into liquidation.
What could go wrong in moving to the city where all your dreams were supposed to come true, as long as you were prepared to work hard? Kenny had the dedication; trouble was, so did the thousands of other migrants streaming into the capital city, every day of the week.
The café had been one of the many establishments that he’d visited, looking for any work. The only reason why that one stood out was because it reminded him of the diners that he used to visit back home, back before his life turned to complete dogshit.
Kenny tried not to laugh. To think that when he was looking for a place to bed down after first arriving in the city, he’d believed that his life could not get any worse. Looking back though, he was just one of thousands whose life had fallen apart around them. He’d been nothing special. The one thing that had set him apart from all the other poor shmucks was that he hadn’t ended up dead or eaten when The Turning swept through the city.
“Thank you for that, Diane,” he murmured. Kenny knew that if it hadn’t been for his sister helping him through these past few years, he’d have died long ago.
Even to this day, Kenny still couldn’t understand how he was able to operate as a normal human being. A sudden shiver coursed through his body; he winced as a dozen pain receptors in his back decided to use this moment to punish him. So, maybe not quite as normal as he once was before The Turning, but at least his desire to kill and eat people didn’t rule his existence.
From the corner of his eye, Kenny saw a small shadow rush out from behind a wall and leap onto the fence. He sighed with relief. Diane had made it past the checkpoints. Not that he had any doubt. His sister had proved time and time again that she was the strong spirit in their family. Nobody but Kenny knew that Diane wasn’t even a native; so much for the security force’s stringent tests.
Had Diane brought something to eat? He reached the door and felt a smile touch the corner of his lips. Where did that thought come from?
The thought of hot bacon spitting away in a big, black frying pan refused to leave his thoughts. Perhaps he shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the weird shit floating through his veins. Okay, so it had nearly gotten him killed, sent him into orbit and caused him to make his back look like he’d been in a motorbike accident, but at least it brought his ‘normal’ appetite back.
Diane ran across the docks, heading towards the stairway. She stopped and bent over the body of his previous visitor. Kenny frowned when he noticed a flash of bright purple under her filthy overalls.
She obviously didn’t want to get her smart uniform grimed up and ripped open. Kenny would have to ask her where she’d gotten the overall from. There wouldn’t have been much chance of sneaking it through gate security. Those uniformed bastards took real pride in ensuring nothing extra went through those gates.
It wasn’t until he was halfway down the stairs that Kenny realized there was something not quite right about Diane’s outfit. The last time he’d seen her ready for work, her uniform had been green.
His sister must have been promoted and he’d had no idea. Kenny stepped over the paint tins. It was probably unfair to start accusing her of withholding information. Diane had no secrets and she would have shared her good news. It wasn’t her fault that at the time, Kenny would have probably been floating around a room, doped up to the eyeballs. Would it have been any wonder that the information hadn’t sunk in?
It explained how she’d managed to get the overall through the gates. A higher pay grade brought about better privileges. Those fuckers manning the gate might have even saluted her.
Diane’s company had secured the contract to clean up the citystates closest to the capital, to make them habitable for their growing population to move into. He wished them all the best of luck with that one. His sister had shown him the real live feeds of what they looked like now. The citystates were totally fucked. Millions of dead things roamed the deadzones, as well as occupying the other citystates; their fortified boundaries had not stopped the zombies from getting inside. It had frightened the crap out of him when she first showed Kenny how it really looked beyond the high walls of their city. Like the rest of the people in the capital, Kenny had no idea that the images they showed on TV were all just graphics.
Her job role had the important title of Unit Management Officer. It sounded important, but in reality, it just meant that Diane was tasked with disposing of the bodies after the military had stopped them from moving about.
Diane’s company must have thought that giving their workers fancy names helped their employees step away from their grisly task. It dehumanized the job.
“Who’s your friend?”
Kenny hurried over and wrapped his arms around her waist. “I’m so glad to see you, Diane, a
nd I’m glad that you got here without any problems.” He looked down at the body. “Oh him, He just appeared out of nowhere this morning. By the state of what’s left of his clothing, I think he must have been under the water for the past few months. My arrival must have woken him up. We danced earlier on but I’m afraid that my gun got a bit jealous.”
“You’re hilarious,” she replied, sighing. “Wait, where is your gun?”
“I left it up there.”
“Well, you had better go get it then.” Diane zipped up her overalls and shivered. “We don’t have a lot of time left. If we don’t get there before the first appointments, it’ll be tomorrow before we can try this again.”
“I don’t understand, Diane. I thought that’s why we needed the gun. You know, to force them at the medi-center to give me the drugs.”
“There’s no point me asking if you were listening to me last night, because you obviously weren’t.” She kissed him on the nose. “You’re my brother and I love you, but there are times when I wonder if there’s any point in explaining anything to you. We take the gun just as a precaution. We’re not going to force anyone to do anything. If this goes right, nobody will even know we’ve been in there.”
He nodded, desperately trying to remember what she had told him last night before leaving him alone on that street corner. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember anything she’d said.
“You don’t remember, do you?”
He shrugged. “Sorry, I guess my mind wasn’t working at full capacity when you told me.”
“It doesn’t matter, Kenny. It’s not like you had to do anything. Go on, go fetch the gun.”
“Okay.” He turned and then stopped. “Diane, do you, by any chance, have anything to eat? I can’t remember the last time I ate.”
His sister stared at him before a smile broke over her face. “You’re seriously hungry?” She unzipped her overalls and searched through her pockets before bringing out a foil-wrapped ball. “I was given these last night by my neighbor.” Diane unwrapped the foil and dropped the ball into his hand.
Kenny’s mouth started to water. It looked more like a small ball of tightly squeezed black earth than actual food, but the heavy spices coming from the substance told him otherwise. They engaged his senses while simultaneously telling him to stop torturing his rumbling stomach.
He pushed half the patty into his eager mouth and bit down, tasting all those exotic spices exploding in his mouth. The meat was just incredible. Whoever had made this certainly knew how to cook. It wasn’t quite a bacon sandwich; in fact, it was way better. Kenny looked at his sister.
“I guess you like it?”
He nodded, unable to speak.
“My new neighbors brought them round last night. As a thank you for saving their lives.” Diane smiled. “One of our helicopters reached another citystate last week and actually found survivors. They were able to hold out until now, before the dead hordes finally swarmed through their narrow streets.” Diane shivered. “There weren’t that many that got out alive. Our company intends to explore the rest of their city this week. I doubt they’ll find any more survivors though.” She pointed to the remains of the patty in the palm of his hand. “They sure know how to cook.”
Kenny nodded again and pushed the last bit into his mouth. It reminded him a little of the exotic burgers that he and his mates used to eat by the truckload every Saturday night after hitting the bars in the center of the city. There were always dozens of street vendors, all begging for the custom from the drunken lads as they stumbled out of the bars.
He swallowed the last of it, still able to taste the spices in his mouth. Kenny wondered where the meat had come from. Then decided that he didn’t want to know, considering that the fields full of cows, sheep, and horses went a few weeks after The Turning.
Most of their food was supplied by the government. They handed out the food bars like candy. The poorer areas of the population had no choice if they wanted to survive; they had to eat the vile tasting things, containing who knows what. The elite and their friends had their own food. Their ration bars ended up thrown away.
Kenny’s food, when he did decide to eat, came from whatever he could scavenge. He could always find enough discarded ration bars to keep him alive. If he fancied food with real taste, he knew of a few vendors who could make anything from the local population of rat, dog, or cat. While searching through the rubbish, Kenny could usually find enough miscellaneous items that he could use as trade for a burger.
He ran up the metal stairs, and for the first time in what seemed like months, Kenny actually didn’t feel so bad. When he reached the top, Kenny looked back and saw Diane pulling something else out of her pockets. At first, he thought it was going to be another portion of that delicious foil-wrapped food. But it was a small flask. She unscrewed the top and tipped it over the body. Kenny gripped the railing and watched the contents splash onto the zombie’s flesh. By this time tomorrow, thanks to the liquid, the dockside rats, cats, and other scavengers, there would be very little of that thing left, apart from a few scattered bones.
Kenny belched and tasted his food again. What a sad turn of events, to think that the zombie had now entered their food chain. Diane screwed on the cap and returned the flask to her pocket. He knew of quite a few people who would kill to get their hands on the stuff that his sister had poured onto the dead thing. It didn’t seem to matter to them that the fluid was deadly to humans; all they cared about was that, apart from the stuff they handed out at the medi-centers, the fluid was the purest known source of Beldazine. They were under the deluded idea that they could somehow succeed in removing the bonded poisonous substances where better minds had tried, failed, and died.
He headed into the building, wishing that he could remember what Diane had planned for the raid at the medi-center. Kenny walked over to his gun and picked it up. It didn’t make much sense to him. If they were only going to take the gun as a last resort and it wasn’t all that essential to her plans, then why couldn’t they have raided the place a couple of days ago before he almost turned? That way neither of them would have had to have a tumble with that fucking psychopath. God, he should have put a bullet in his head, there and then.
Kenny closed his eyes and told himself to stop worrying. Everything would turn out okay. His sister had never let him down yet. Diane had told him that she wouldn’t stop until he was back on the right track and off the injections. The thoughts of rehabilitation left him when a violent shiver travelled through his body. He shook his head, trying to calm down his heart as it beat faster and faster. Oh crap, this was not the time to have another fucking relapse.
He staggered forward, spun around and slammed his back against the wall, then slid to the floor, feeling bubbles of sweat pouring down his face. This was the third time since his sister had left him that this condition of helplessness had crept over him. He refused to let it beat him. Kenny let go of the gun, wincing as it crashed against the floor beside him.
It would have been the ultimate irony if the gun had fired, slamming the bullet with Rossini’s name on it into his head instead. Kenny rolled onto his front, then rolled back again, onto his gun. He arched his back then relaxed his muscles, groaning in agony as some metal part protruding from the gun dug into his damaged back.
It did the trick though; the malaise and the nausea suddenly left his body. He felt like complete shit but at least he believed that he would be able to function normally, well, until the spasms hit him again. With luck though he would have as much clean stuff as he could fit in his pockets, all ready to inject, and he just knew that the drug would flush out the crap that was still inside him.
Kenny made his way over to the door, sighing when he saw the tiny spatters of blood behind him. Past experience made him halt. He couldn’t afford to go anywhere if he was dripping blood. Although the vast amount of scanners all over the city made it impossible for any of the walking dead to stay intact for more than a couple of minu
tes, he still didn’t feel safe knowing that he was bleeding. Those things could smell fresh blood for miles away and a couple of minutes would be all it took for one of them to rip him apart.
He grabbed the door handle and counted to ten, looking behind him and watching one more drop of his precious life fluid roll out from under his jacket. It looked as though it was stopping now. As long as he didn’t re-open the wounds, he reckoned that he’d be okay.
His sister stood at the bottom of the stairs looking up at him. “I thought you’d gone to sleep, Kenny.”
“I’m fine,” he replied, slowly walking down the stairs. He couldn’t feel any more blood dripping down his back. He took that as a good sign. Kenny grinned to himself, hoping that this day would turn out to be his turning point. The marker for when he could look back and say that here was where everything in his life improved. He knew that if he could get enough of the drug, it wasn’t just the diluted shit that he’d be able to flush out; with luck, Kenny might even be able to clear out any signs of the main infection. If that happened, he’d be able to qualify for prescriptions for the highly prized pills. Kenny told himself not to get too carried away. After all, as far as he knew, nobody who actually died had come back as human. Did that not make him unique? Just what would those fuckers do to him if he did turn himself into the authorities? Perhaps it would be safer to carry on living on the fringes.
Anyone who had to resort to injections were classed as non-persons, as far as society believed; anyone using the needle was just a worthless parasite, not much better that the walking corpses. Of course, the media helped to reinforce that attitude by running the news reports announcing that his kind were murdering the rich and the well off and eating their bodies, or that they were breeding a new kind of virus in their filthy bodies. It had even been suggested that it was people like Kenny who had been responsible for the zombie outbreak in the first place.
Was it all that surprising that, no matter what tragedy landed upon their species, there was still that urge to dominate the ones weaker than themselves? He knew for a fact that the media needed the public to believe their lies. Of course they did. If their receptive customers believed that the ones on the needle were actually humans, none of the television public would watch their TV shows.
