by steve higgs
‘We need to get to the nightclub, Frank. They don’t move fast, so we are going to charge through them. Right?’
‘Okay.’ He replied, clearly nervous and trying hard to ignore it.
Not bothering to offer any further explanation, I steeled myself to charge through the line of zombies that came at us. I grabbed the shoulder of Frank’s jacket, so I would not lose him, then broke into a sprint.
Then stopped.
Stumbling towards me from the smoke was James. There were maybe another ten zombies around him, some ahead, some behind but all coming towards us as we were the only people remaining in the street. Everyone else had fled. He was stumbling along in the group, arms out and groaning like the rest. Where the zombies’ eyes were deranged though, his were just terrified. He spotted me and risked a wry smile.
He was faking!
The zombies were upon us again, so I hit the first one over the head as gently as one can with a wooden club, then ducked into the lunge of the next one and whacked him under the chin.
‘James!’ I yelled. ‘Crouch down.’
He looked confused but obeyed the instruction. I still had one hand on Frank’s jacket in fear of being split up. ‘OK, Frank. Let’s go!’ I found myself yelling again. What can I say? It was an exciting situation.
At a charge, we closed the distance to James, knocking zombies over like pins as we went. It proved to be much, much easier than trying to knock them out without hurting them. Frank and I scooped an arm each without even slowing down and we were running down the road with James between us, his heels dragging along the concrete
More smoke swirled around us and I spotted fire behind a window as flames were licking at the woodwork inside. Sirens could be heard in the distance; police and fire brigade and probably paramedics. All were needed.
Suddenly, the smoke cleared, we were just metres from the Casino Nightclub entrance and there were no zombies in sight. I dragged James and Frank through the open door of the Victoria and Eagle pub to get us off the street. Checking that nobody, and no zombies were inside, I slammed the door behind us. It felt slightly safer for a moment.
‘What is going on?’ James asked between deep breaths.
Now that we had at least a few seconds to re-group I had questions for him. ‘James did the hypnotist create the zombies?’
‘Yeah! He did!’ He replied, astounded. ‘How did you know?’
‘Lucky guess.’ I said rather than waste time on conversation. ‘Next question. How are you not affected?’
‘Oh. Well, when we arrived, the chap had an assistant lady and she was handing out canapes. She was very insistent that everyone have one, but it smelled like fish and since I am a vegan, I faked putting it in my mouth and slipped it into my pocket instead. Here it is.’ He announced producing a rather fancy, but now sadly battered blini looking object, with a leaf, a blob of something edible and a shake of spice over the top.
‘Thank you.’ I said, taking the canape and placing it into a little bag I had pulled from one of my many pockets. An investigator keeps things like that just in case evidence pops up. ‘Then what?’
‘The Great Howsini asked everyone to sit and launched into his show. It was weird though, not like his usual act and I noticed that everyone around me had stopped moving. It was like they were unconscious, but their eyes were still wide open. The weirdest thing was that he was telling them all that they were the walking dead, the most terrifying zombie creatures that needed to feed on human flesh. I was scared because they were all starting to groan and make growling noises, so I played along. The assistant lady threw open the doors and he sent us all out to kill, kill, kill. That was what he said, “Kill, kill, kill!”
Right then. ‘Gents you can come with me if you want, but you may be safer staying here. The Great Howsini is about to learn the error of his ways.’ I was going to find this idiot and punch him in the pants. Bring zombies to my town, real or not and you pay for it. The problem being, that I had no idea how to find him.
‘James do you have a picture of him, or can you describe him?’ I was hoping he was going to be easy to spot and that I could catch him here. If not, I would catch up to him later, but by then the adrenalin would be out of my system, I would be thinking with more reason and would find it far harder to justify hurting him.
‘No need really.’ James said. ‘That’s him over there.’ He pointed.
Across the street, a man in a suit that screamed stage show act with its sequinned seam up the trouser leg and overly long jacket tails, was carrying heavy sacks towards the car park. He was in his late thirties, a good fifty pounds overweight and had very little hair left. What there was formed a black ring around the sides and back of his scalp. The effect making his scalp look like a round mountain rising above particularly dark clouds. Behind him, a woman of similar age and figure was weighed down by more sacks. I pulled out my camera and started filming. Then, I handed it to James with the simple instruction to keep it rolling.
The Great Howsini’s real name was Dave Gough. The lady was his wife, Brenda. She was a chemist. Once cornered, they had given in immediately and confessed their story to the police that had arrived on the scene moments later. I was getting to be known by the local police as my job had a habit of landing me in the vicinity of dubious events. But for once, they had skipped over the bit where they arrested me and had allowed me to remain at the scene. The Goughs were caught red-handed with bags of cash and goods stolen from shops, bars and restaurants that they had subsequently set ablaze in order to cover their tracks. Missing money and goods would be discovered at the other zombie attack sites when the ash was sifted.
James’s original research into how to make a zombie had been bang on the money. Brenda was a chemist by trade and could legally obtain the tetrodotoxin which she had made it into a drug that would render a person ingesting it in a state of semi-suspended animation. Full of ego, she had bragged how deliciously complex it had been.
The police had departed with the Goughs in cuffs and we trudged wearily back through a desolated and partly destroyed Rochester High Street. We passed fire brigade teams putting out fires and we paused at my office to lock up, and at Frank’s bookshop, where we found the door wide open, but the contents unmolested.
I was bitten, battered, bruised and tired, but also somehow elated. It was time for a cold one and I was buying.
The End
Spooky Shopping Mall
The Harper Files
Case 1
Spooky Shopping Mall
Steve Higgs & Gemma Higgs
Text Copyright © 2018 Steven J Higgs
Publisher: Steve Higgs
The right of Steve Higgs and Gemma Higgs to be identified as authors of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved.
The book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
‘Spooky Shopping Mall’ is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or undead, events or locations is entirely coincidental.
For strong, independent women everywhere
Contents
The Pentagon Shopping Centre, Chatham. Sunday, October 17th 1412hrs
Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris. Sunday, October 17th 1915hrs
Maidstone Police Station. Monday, October 18th 0853hrs
A Case for Me. Monday, October 18th 1230hrs
The Pentagon Shopping Centre, Chatham. Monday, October 18th 1924hrs
At the Pentagon with Patience. Tuesday, 19th October 1611hrs
My Apartment. Wednesday, October 20th 0600hrs
The Pentagon. Wednesday, October 20th 1347hrs
In My Flat. Wednesday, October 20th 1917hrs
Ghostbusting. Thursday, October 21st 0745hrs
A Date With Brett. Thursday, October 21st 1911hrs
Extract from The Harper Files: Case 2
Last shift. Sunday, October 30th 1156hrs
A new case. Sunday, October 30th 1643hrs
The Mongrain Estate. Sunday, October 30th 2052hrs
The Pentagon Shopping Centre, Chatham. Sunday, October 17th 1412hrs
The elevator doors swished open with the barest whisper of noise. The young man stood waiting for it, was playing with his phone using just his right hand while in his left he hefted several bags that were shiny and new from a variety of shops. He looked up briefly and stepped over the threshold into the shiny metal box.
Just as the doors were closing a hand slithered between them and two pretty girls in their early twenties got in. They were chatting about something on TV, talking about the hunk who had his shirt off last night.
‘What floor?' he asked, his hand hovering over the buttons. They were on the bottom floor anyway so whichever level they wanted the elevator would be travelling in the right direction. The Pentagon only had two levels with shops. It was one of the first indoor shopping malls built in the area, way back in the seventies. The many-floored office block attached to it stood towering over the Chatham skyline. The planners had undoubtedly expected the offices to be a draw when it was erected, but now they sat mostly empty.
‘Three, please,’ the prettier of the two girls replied with a throwaway smile.
He was also parked on three, so he stabbed the button with one finger as the doors began to once again slide closed.
With a small lurch, the elevator began moving. He was leaning idly against the back wall and had put his bags down so that he could use both hands on his phone. In front of him the two girls were still chatting back and forth about nothing much and one had pulled out her phone so the two of them could take a selfie. Then the elevator jerked to a halt and the lights went out. The cramped interior of the lift was split by a scream from one of the girls, an involuntary reaction but one that caused him to jump more than the lights going out had.
A second or so later the lights came back on and the lift started moving again.
‘Oh, my God. What was that?’ one girl asked of the other.
‘I don’t know, but I didn’t like it,’ she wailed in return.
‘It was probably just a power outage,’ he interjected, trying to sound authoritative and knowledgeable. Both girls turned slightly to look at him, maybe waiting for him to expand on his statement but he had nothing else he could think of to say.
They turned back away from him and the girl with the phone lifted it once more to try taking the selfie again. Then she screamed a scream that would echo in the man's head for years to come. She let go of her phone just as the elevator jerked to a stop and pinged its arrival at their floor. The doors swished open as the girl's phone hit the lino. She screamed again and ran out of the elevator, bouncing off the still opening doors in her haste to escape. Her friend followed closely behind.
‘Your phone?’ the man called after them, wondering what the hell was going on. He jammed a foot up against the right-hand door to stop it from closing and bent down to pick up the phone. As he turned it over and saw the screen his soul froze.
The girl had managed to snap the first selfie when the lights had gone out and there, between their heads and right next to him was the shape of a person. It was caught in motion and it was blurry, but it was undeniably the outline of the figure of a person in the lift with them when the lights were out. The lift pinged again, and the doors tried to close, shoving against his foot so that he had to increase the weight on it to keep it in place.
What was he seeing? He needed to show this to someone. The police? Or maybe the Ghostbusters? He could feel his hair standing on end. Staring at the screen on the phone, the lift pinged again and he realised he needed to move, go and find the two girls or something. He would send himself the photograph first though. He turned to get this shopping from the floor where he had placed it.
It was no longer there.
Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris. Sunday, October 17th 1915hrs
A few hours after the incident in Chatham and completely oblivious to it I was boarding a plane home. I looked back at the last thirty-six hours. Like all weekend city breaks it had passed in a blur, leaving my memory trying to connect all that had happened into a coherent sequence. My date for the weekend was a man I knew almost nothing about but had arrested a few days ago on suspicion of murder and then arranged for his release less than twenty-four hours later. His name was Brett Barker. He owned the Barker Steel Mill in Dartford, Kent and was a single, attractive, athletic multi-millionaire. My name is Amanda Harper. I am a police officer working for Kent police, but I already quit that job a couple of weeks ago in favour of a career as a private investigator. That statement, however, fails to capture the truth of my new job. I think I will leave it at that for now though as this bit is about the ridiculously delicious hunk I am salivating about.
Brett had approached me a few days before I arrested him and expressed his desire to see me socially. He was quite charming, and he had a confident nature that bordered on being arrogant but never went that far. He had shown a touch of nervousness when he asked me to come to Paris for the weekend and that had been what had convinced me to go. Had he been certain I was going to say yes, then I would not have done.
We flew first class, the first time I had ever done that but clearly it was the only way he travelled anywhere. He had been intending to fly his helicopter, but the weather predictions had been ominous, and the plane was safer.
When we boarded the plane yesterday morning, I was acutely aware that I had not yet been on a date with him, or even kissed him, and now I was planning to spend the night away with him in the penthouse of the Ritz, in the centre of Paris. He was being a perfect gentleman and had not tried to so much as hold my hand, but all men are more or less the same, so I set some ground rules and explained that I would not be sleeping with him that night. He took the news very well as if that was entirely expected and thoughts of getting into my knickers could not have been further from his mind. He explained that he had booked the penthouse because it came with three separate bedrooms, each with an en-suite bathroom and that I would have complete privacy whenever I wanted it.
Halfway through the first evening, I had almost changed my mind about the sleeping arrangements though. I was being swept off my feet. Being with him was how I imagined it would be to be famous, but without all the unwanted attention. Everywhere we went, he was greeted like an old friend. We were given a private tour of the Louvre, we took a helicopter tour above Paris as the predicted storm had not come to pass, and had eaten at the fanciest restaurants I had ever seen, let alone been in. Obviously, he would not let me pay for anything. After dinner, I had most of a bottle of champagne in me and I was starting to wonder what he looked like naked.
I don't make a habit of one-night stands, in fact, I abhor them and have only had two in my life, many years ago and best forgotten. This would not be a one-night stand though, I told myself, as I was planning to see him again and again and again if there were any more dates like this to be had. Instead, this would be having sex on the first date; something else I advocated against, but boy was he looking tempting now.
As we got in the lift to go up to the top floor, I slid my hand into his. It was the first time we had touched apart from when he charmingly offered me his hand to get out of the Rolls Royce we were travelling around Paris in. As the lift doors closed and we were thankfully alone, I turned into him, looped my left hand behind his head and pulled him down
into a kiss. I had been just very slightly concerned that he was gay because he had not made a single suggestive comment or move on me and that had never happened before, but my worries were instantly alleviated as his tongue gently slipped between my lips and the kiss deepened.
We were still kissing ten seconds later when the lift binged to announce our arrival. Neither one of us broke the kiss though until someone coughed politely. The lift had stopped before it reached the penthouse suite level to let someone else on. As Brett opened his eyes and saw our audience, he quickly broke the kiss off and stood up straight again. In the doorway, were a cute older couple in their late seventies, dressed for dinner and holding hands. Brett said something to them in French that I could not follow and they both laughed.
The man waved a hand and replied but they made no attempt to get in the lift with us. The doors closed once more, and we continued up the last bit to the top floor.
Brett did not kiss me again but kept hold of my hand and led me to the room. As we crossed the elegantly styled lobby, he let go of my hand to retrieve the key from inside his jacket. Stood waiting beside him, I was having a tough mental debate with the sensible, rational version of myself that knew no good could come of sleeping with him this early in our relationship and the utter whore persona that wanted to whisper that the dress he had bought me to wear tonight really didn't allow for the person inside to also wear knickers. They were still arguing when he opened the door and let me inside and had come to no conclusion by the time the door was shut, and we were alone.
Thankfully, I suppose, Brett decided for me.
‘Goodnight, Amanda,’ he said, taking my hand and kissing it, ‘I have work to do but will see you in the morning.’
