The Undead Day Nineteen

by Haywood, RR

  With one smooth motion she reaches down, grips Lani’s ankles and stands up as the seared flesh tears from having adhered to the concrete ground. She grips harder, forcing the body to peel away. The skin under her fingers sinks in and rips open. Soft fat oozes out to slide thick across the backs of her hands and drip onto the ground.

  The disturbance releases gases that expunge noisily and bodily fluids leak, seep and drip from orifices but still Lani remains stuck to the ground.

  ‘Fuck,’ Sam grunts and moves to Lilly’s side to reach down and take a wrist. That too tears under her grip. The flesh parting like soft fruit. Pea comes next, grabbing the other wrist and together they pull back as the body sucks gloopily up from the ground.

  The protected flesh on Lani’s underside remains less cooked, less crispy and it rips open leaving chunks stuck on the floor. Liquid drips out. The smell of cooked shit fills the room. Lilly gags first, hacking as she turns her head to one side. Sam follows suit. Yacking and gulping air in short hard breaths.

  ‘This was a fucking stupid thing to do,’ Sam gasps, turning her head to the side and immediately regretting talking as that means she now has to breathe back in.

  ‘We’re…we’re here now,’ Pea’s eyes water with tears that stream from the stench, the noises and the sight of the body falling apart with every foot they move it.

  They drag the corpse across the ground and through the door into the main room. A wet slick left behind in their wake with Lani’s skull bouncing dully on the ground.

  Sam pukes first. A dry heave and the water she only ingested a short time ago comes thundering out. She manages to twist her head enough for the spray to mostly miss Lani.

  ‘Oh no,’ Pea groans. One action invokes another and at the sight of Sam puking Pea feels her own stomach heave and contract. With a gargled yell she vomits down at her own feet adding the fine aroma of hot sick to a rotten corpse of burnt flesh leaking shit, piss and blood.

  ‘Fuck,’ Liam dances back from the door with a look of revulsion twisting his features at the sight of the three women dragging the ruined corpse out. Sam pukes again. Retching but refusing to release the body knowing she wouldn’t summon the courage to touch it again.

  Zayden just stares. Too stupid to move and he notices the off-white fat oozing between their fingers and the gooey trail smeared behind that brings the smell to his nose.

  ‘Urgh,’ he gags first then pukes hard with half-digested Doritos spewing out with bits of popcorn floating in a marinade of 7up.

  Liam is made of tougher stuff though and refuses to vomit. His eyes water. His face contorts. A vein in his neck stands out, throbbing at the denial of the natural reflex. Instead he forces a casual look at the mutilated cadaver and sucks his teeth, showing perfect disdain that just makes Zayden hate him that little bit more.

  ‘No sweetcorn,’ Pea grunts.

  ‘Eh?’ Sam grunts back.

  ‘Sweetcorn,’ Pea yacks, and widens her eyes, ‘no…no sweetcorn in the puke…always sweetcorn in puke…’

  ‘…Even, oh shit,’ Sam turns her head up in an effort to draw clean air, ‘…even when you haven’t eaten sweetcorn…s’always sweetcorn.’

  ‘Wasn’t though,’ Pea gurgles, ‘or carrots.’

  ‘Didn’t see any,’ Lilly mutters trying with all her might to breathe in through her mouth but that just means the stench is converted to flavour that coats her taste buds. ‘I’m…’ She fails in the warning and heaves to vomit on the patch of ground next to her.

  ‘God!’ Pea heaves with puke streaming from her mouth and nose.

  ‘Pea!’ Sam chastises her friend but like a yawn the action is seen and copied, ‘urgh,’ she yacks to the side, spittle and drool hanging from her chin.

  ‘Argh,’ Zayden heaves again, puking hard with projectile vomit splattering the ground. His hormone addled mind too dumb to realise he’s walking in Lani’s slipstream with every ripe smell going straight up his nose.

  Like an orchestral movement the action sets them off, one in turn of the other. Zayden’s greater stomach contents triggering Pea who triggers Sam who triggers Lilly. Mouths stretching. Stomachs contracting. Drool, spit and bile sliding down chins to dangle and sway on strands that coat bare arms.

  They walk fast, praying the body doesn’t disintegrate and fall apart. Seconds go by. None of them puke. Hope builds with the front gate now firmly in sight. Hands sliding over the limbs grip harder as the flesh slides from the bone but Sam can’t hold it in. The back of her throat pulls down. Her mouth fills with saliva and her stomach heaves with a mighty contraction. She bends double, entirely given over to the urge of her body demanding she expel the noxious gases coming into her mouth and nose.

  Pea follows suit. Once again triggered by Sam. She heaves, turning her head to yack and a split second later Lilly takes her turn. All three women yacking, heaving, retching but refusing to drop the body.

  ‘Think…’ Lilly gasps between heaves, ‘think he…oh gosh…think he urgh,’ she heaves and draws quick shallow breaths, ‘think he fancies me now?’

  Sam blinks through misted eyes to the sight of Lilly’s bright red face and her chin covered in stands of puke. She snorts a laugh that blows a snot bubble from her nose that sets Pea off. The snot bubble bursts. Pea laughs harder. Her cheeks wet from tears. Lilly starts giggling with an action as involuntary as the vomiting. The sheer barbarity of it. The degradation of her mind at handling the ruined corpse of someone she actually knew. Zayden still heaving and still too dumb to move away.

  Near hysteria grips with all three desperately avoiding looking at each other for each time they do so they snort and laugh harder. Guffawing braying that hurts their stomachs as the tension finds a way out.

  ‘Stop it,’ Pea pushes the words out with a cackle of laughter that just makes the other two laugh harder but that tension nears breaking point with real sobs starting to sound between the laughs. Genuine noises of abject grief in response to the staggering heat built so high and trapped within the high walls. Pure misery created by man, made by man and continued by children armed with assault rifles.

  Trapped in the micro-bubble and they don’t notice the skies darken. They don’t take in the clouds rushing overhead that hang so heavy and low.

  As Howie and Marcy run hand in hand through the fields in a village so far away, so the first drop of rain falls to land heavy on Lani’s burnt face and it rolls like a tear released from her cindered eye. Another falls. Another and more follows with a pattering that draws the attention of the others working to clear the mess and the old man who stops to ease the ache in his bent back from shifting bodies after a decade of retirement.

  The skies open. A literal thing of almost prophetic scale and suddenly the air distorts with a haze of grey from sheet rain hammering down.

  The three stop. They stop and turn their faces to the heavens and let the corpse slide from wet fingers and they don’t hear the slump as the body comes to rest for such is the incessant drumming now filling their ears.

  Blessed relief is given instantly and they stand with mouths held open as the purest of rain cleans the sick from their chins. The dust, fibres and chemicals hanging in the air are pushed back down by seemingly infinite tiny droplets of water that combine to form an army that gives grace back to the air they inhale.

  It comes harder. Drumming with the beats of a marching band. Rain that builds with intensity. Sheet rain. Driving rain. A solid wall of water that seems to hang in the air. Every soul in the fort stops and looks up. Old men and women blink and let the water slide between their thin lips. Men and women just stand to feel something other than misery. Children stare in wonder for never before has such a thing been seen or felt. Rain but more of it than any of them thought possible.

  Every other sound is blotted out. Every other sense dulled until each person becomes the centre of their own universe. Held in stasis in a river coming from the sky.

  Lilly exhales slowly with a long release of air that escapes from
her now clean lips and she lets the water pour over her. Not a thought given to anyone else. Not a flicker of memory of anything other than being right here.

  Yet the rain comes harder with an intensity that seems angry. Like someone up there is offended by the mess made by the mortals scrabbling about amidst the blood and shit.

  Still she remains static, rock-like and unmoving. So they all do. Every inch of skin is cleansed. Mouths held open to drink and gulp with the delight of innocence at something so wonderful given so freely.

  Pea’s frizzy hair becomes slick against her scalp and neck. Her eyes closed and she, like Lilly, feels nothing other than the splendour of this second.

  Sam is the same. Lost in the moment. Drawn to another place in reality but harder it comes. The rain lashing down with a sensation close to stinging exposed skin.

  Lilly reaches up with a slow lazy motion to push her hands through her hair. Feeling the filth wash away and as the pelting rain comes harder so she starts to think. She lowers her head. Looking round to see Zayden doing the same as everyone else and staring up with his eyes closed. She turns, slow and casual. Liam the same and every armed youth within sight copying everyone else.

  She can’t see the back of the fort for the greyness of the squall blots her view. She can’t see the far side either for the same reason and if she can’t see them, they can’t see her. Go. Move now. Don’t hesitate like you did before. Take the gun from Sam. Ram the point into Zayden’s mouth. Take his rifle. Give the pistol to Sam or Pea. Disarm Liam and move like a demon. Move like Nick would move.

  She grunts. Hardened and ready as the explosive retort of a single shot fired from an assault rifle robs that urgency and she turns to see Sierra striding from the police office with her girls ranged out behind her. Sierra fires again. Pointing the rifle into the sky and it recoils with the single pull of the trigger, thudding into her shoulder.

  ‘YOU’S WORK,’ she screams with a ferocious animation pulsing through her that belies the inert girl that stared slack at the wall only a moment ago. A third shot and someone screams as the world comes back to the harsh reality of the now.

  ‘WORK,’ Sierra screams. She aims for Lilly with unseeing eyes and slams the girl aside. ‘WORK,’ a hand lashes out slapping Pea hard in the face. Lilly is hit again. Skyla shouldering through her with a snarling scowl of scraped back hair and a mouth chewing a piece of gum.

  ‘Work, posh bitch.’

  Through the rain Lilly sees Sierra heading malevolent and furious towards the vehicle ramp and the direction of the children. Lilly goes to move after her, her mind filled with images of her brother but Skyla looms snarling with the butt of the rifle slamming out into her stomach, making her bend double with an explosion of pain. A second blow to the back of her head sends her crumpling to the ground.

  ‘Ain’t so posh now, bitch…you’s down in the mud like…’

  ‘Skyla…’

  ‘What?’ Skyla shouts at being interrupted by Zayden.

  ‘Leave her yeah,’ Zayden says petulantly.

  Pea rushes towards Lilly only to get hit from behind by another girl ramming the butt of her rifle into the bottom of Pea’s spine. A yell and she slumps down beside Lilly in the deep puddles already formed from a ground too hard to soak the water.

  Another scream and Sam goes down twisting as she falls to lands on her back to protect the sight of the pistol.

  Lilly sucks air. Forcing her stomach to relax and let the pain ease away. Through the noise of the rain she hears angry shouts coming from the direction of the vehicle ramp. Terrified screams of pain as more brutal hits are given out. She looks up to see Skyla glaring at Zayden then back down at Lilly as her scowl slowly morphs into a smirk. Her eyebrows twitch and the corners of her mouth flick up in delight at reading Zayden so easily.

  ‘You’s fancy her,’ Skyla makes the connections and bursts out laughing. A soft almost gentle noise that would be sweet at any other time, ‘you’s hear that?’ Skyla calls to the other girl that hit Pea, ‘Zay wants to fuck the posh bitch!’

  ‘No…no that ain’t it,’ Zayden flusters angrily, his face flushing a deep red that sends Skyla cackling louder.

  ‘Zay, you dumb cunt,’ Skyla shakes her head at him, a young girl trying to appear full of wisdom and maturity, ‘She ain’t ever gonna let you shag her…’

  ‘I said that ain’t it…’

  ‘She’s posh as fuck, Zay…she ain’t gonna let no pimply boy be her baby daddy and anyway, you’s ugly as fuck, bruv, you get me?’

  Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Skyla stands tall. The water pouring down her face and dripping from the assault rifle held in her hands. Three women cowering in fear at her feet. Two of them older, like the social workers, pigs and teachers that used to tell her what to do and the other like someone from the movies. Refined, polite, cultured, educated and intelligent. The polar opposite to everything Skyla is. A reminder of the roots of her life. She’d never heard anyone like Lilly in real life. Bitches only spoke and acted like that in films.

  She smiles. Teeth white but uneven and chipped. Her hair scraped back from her face showing the blackheads on her forehead and in her own mind she looks beautiful and full of glory as she stands over the nasty bitches and makes them cower in the water.

  Power corrupts and she twists the events to justify her own actions. Lani killed Darius and made Howie escape. Lilly helped her. Lilly is one of them. One of the fuckers that made her go to counselling. One of the cunts that made her get kicked out from school. One of the fucking witnesses that made statements that led to her being convicted at court and sent on a youth offending programme where she learnt to be harder and tougher.

  She is right. They are wrong. People like these three had all the power before but not now. Skyla has the gun. Skyla has right on her side. Skyla is number two.

  Power corrupts and she revels in the feeling. Holding still to drag it out longer but something else lurks in the back of her mind. A feeling of discomfort. Of grief. Her friends being killed. Seeing their bodies blown apart. Watching them being dragged from the hospital to be dumped like trash. The upheaval of leaving the compound and coming here. The change in Maddox as he slowly stopped using their language and started becoming more like one of these fuckers crying in the rain at her feet. Emotions she can’t understand and is too young to deal with. Like Sierra she masks it, swallows it, ignores it and lets it channel into behaviour that she knows.

  Power corrupts and her eyes see pimply stupid Zayden. Big for his age. Broad shouldered but dumb as shit. Too stupid to do anything other than follow orders. Poor Zayden. Fancying someone way above his league. That thought makes her flinch. That Lilly thinks she is too good for Zay. Zay’s thick but he’s alright. Who does she think she is?

  ‘You’s not ugly, Zay,’ she adds in a voice made softer by the conflicting emotions raging through her heart and mind, ‘this bitch thinks she’s too good for…’

  ‘Get ‘em up,’ Sierra strides back into view, seething with rage that shows in the twisted features of her face. ‘Where’s that posh bitch?’

  ‘Bitch is here,’ Skyla calls out.

  ‘Lilly?’ Sierra hisses the name, powering towards them with a hand already held out ready to grasp Lilly’s soaking wet hair. Her fingers clamp on, scrunching and twisting the strands. Lilly screams in pain at feeling chunks of hair being ripped from her scalp. Her own hands shoot up, clamping on Sierra’s as she’s wrenched up to her feet to be sent flying by a hard kick to the back of her legs. She goes down again. Yelping as her knees hit the ground first, jarring her body. Another kick to her ribs and she rolls away, sliding through puddles of filthy grime. Sierra seethes with an anger she has never felt before. A tangible real thing driving her on. Heedless of the rain, heedless of the cries of the girl scrabbling to get away and holding the assault rifle one handed she kicks again and again at Lilly.

  ‘Sam no!’ Lilly catches sight of Sam reaching behind her back but the words get
muffled as her face slams down into the muddy waters.

  ‘Stop…please stop,’ Pea runs at Sierra, ‘Sierra, stop…please…’

  ‘Fuck off me,’ Sierra twists away from Pea trying to grab her wrist.

  ‘Stop, please…Sierra, look at me…look at me…’

  Sierra does look. She turns snarling with eyes blazing and her fist clenching ready to punch and hit until blood flows and people die. What she sees is a woman old enough to be her mother. A woman of mixed race with darker skin and hair frizzy and wild. She sees brown eyes pleading with tears that stream to mix with the rain sliding down Pea’s cheeks. In an instant the rage is quelled and abates but to back down fully will make her look weak. She glares, refusing to show emotion but wanting only to sink down and weep and curl up and cry forever.

  Her nostrils flare. Her eyes glower as the veins in her neck bulge. She looks down at Lilly and inclines her head with a grunt.

  ‘Work,’ she speaks low but the words carry. ‘Or you’s don’t eat. No one eats till it all gets done.’

  She walks off into the grey sheet rain that hides the tears now coursing down her own cheeks.

  Eight

  Work or you don’t eat.

  Sierra meant what she said. They work. They do not eat.

  The rain is relentless. Driving incessantly forever towards the ground where it gathers and forms deep pools.

  There is no shelter and no place to gain a reprieve. Doorways are used by the kids armed with assault rifles that smoke and swig sugary drinks. They eat crisps, chocolate bars and stay dry.

  Those in the middle work. They do not eat.

  They drag the burnt and broken remains of the tents and structures to the front to be stacked in the middle section between the inner and outer walls. A place already filled with burnt cars and vehicles that were stacked before the sea made the fort an island of misery and death.

  The children become quiet and withdrawn. Those too tired to work are left to huddle at the sides under rainfall that makes them shiver with cold from the lack of movement to keep them warm. Empty bellies rumble so they drink the water coming down simply to fill the void.