by P. R. Sharp
I put some oil and a knob of margarine into a pan, added a pinch of salt and a twist of black pepper and put it on a low simmer; then added the onions. I put the sausages under the grill and sliced some bread, all the time constantly glancing out of the window. Moya pawed the door again. I opened it, holding her back with my foot, but she pushed by me and ran down the steps and immediately began to sniff the floor. I scanned the street and the sports field beyond. Infected were dotted everywhere. Most were standing still, but every now and then, one would go into spasm or turn its head. I quickly checked the sausages; they had another ten minutes at least. The onions were sweating down nicely to a caramelised russet flush and Jonny B had succeeded in rolling a pretty decent joint, for once. I looked back into the compound and Moya was following a scent along the interior wall that separated us from the next door neighbour. Jonny B lit the joint and passed it over to me. I drew the smoke in deeply and held it in my lungs, nodding my approval. As I exhaled and turned my attention back to the compound, I saw Moya sniffing along the ground next to the fence. Moya growled, then barked then yelped as the infected that had been skulking next to the police cruiser suddenly pounced, grabbed her and violently pulled her towards the palisade fencing. She squirmed and struggled, breaking free for a split second and snapped at the fingers that grappled to hook her fur. One hand pinched the scruff of her neck whilst another caught her under the chin and around the ear, both hands working in a clamping motion. I watched as the diseased arms withdrew back through the rails, pulling Moya's head through the gap. The joint fell from my mouth when I realised that she could not break free, and I bolted down the steps. Moya's protests were painful to hear, as the infected repeatedly yanked and wrenched her body, each attempt forcing her further through the metal bars. I heard a loud double snap as first one front leg, and then the other fractured, followed by that gut wrenching howl of distress. In my haste, I stumbled and fell flat on to the compound floor, sliding on my chest and face towards the fence; my arms outstretched like a rugby player attempting to score an important try. My finger tips were only inches from Moya's convulsing back legs as I saw her rib cage shatter under the repeated and relentless efforts to yank her through the rails and into the car park. Even if I had been able to catch her hind quarters, there would have been nothing I could have done to save her, as finally, in one last savage tug, her limp body slipped through the bars with ease. For a horrible moment, the infected held Moya close to his chest and stared at me. His eyes were a sickly yellow, dotted with pinpoints of red. He snarled before turning away.
***
Jonny B said that I went feral; Wolverine feral. He said I scrambled to my feet, screaming and pulling angry faces. He said I span and searched the compound for something, anything with which to fight back. He said I tried to open the locked shutters to my work shop but gave up and threw the wheelie bins and recycling boxes out of their cubby-hole beneath the kitchen steps until I found a spade that I kept there for snow clearing duties. He said I tore my jeans retrieving my keys and opened the side gate. He said I ran out into the car park with the spade raised above my head like an axe.
I don't remember any of that...
***
I swung the spade at the first infected that stood in my way, striking it just above and behind the left ear. The keen edge split the bone and entered at least three inches before stopping dead. We danced a little quick step as the force of the blow and his body weight sent shudders along the hickory shaft. I pulled down and pushed up, twisting his skull open like a knife taking the top off a boiled egg, and moved on before his body fell.
The next felt the full impact of the flat side of my spade. Teeth and sprays of dark blood fanned into the air; I rotated quickly on my toes, spinning a perfect three hundred and sixty degrees and sliced through his Adam's apple. His head fell back like the top of a pez dispenser and I swung the spade again, snapping his neck like a twig. By the time I got to the one who had pulled Moya through the palisade fencing, he was already tearing her open as if he were skinning a rabbit. I sliced the air with the spade, bringing it sharply and decisively down into the side of his leg, just above the knee joint. The leg and his balance buckled and I repeated the move until his knee was completely hacked and he fell to the ground. Without thinking, I cut his head off at the neck, using my foot against the spade to give it extra load. Jonny B said that I picked it up and tossed it over the fencing into the compound before gathering Moya's body; even though the infected was now headless, his grip held fast and I stamped on his chest until his fingers released her, then staggered back through the gate as infected, alerted to my anguished screams, headed towards the car park. He said I was an emotional wreck and as he ran down the kitchen steps, I dropped the spade and fell to my knees. He locked the side gate and retrieved my keys from the padlock.
I blacked out.
When I woke up, I was lying on the kitchen floor. Jonny B had carried me up the steps. My clothing was speckled with blood and I could smell burnt sausages and caramelised onion. Jonny B was sat next to me, crossed legged and crying. Moya's ripped and battered body was lying on the top step, and the car park was filling up with infected.
HINT # 1:
When defending your self against attack, consider the size of your opponent. Not just height, but weight. A large infected male with no sense of danger or pain has an immense scale and mass; so take them down quickly, or you will get squashed.
2.4
Ace of Spades
PHASE TWO
'My my, hey hey.
Rock and roll is here to stay.
Better to burn out than fade away.
My my, hey hey.'
Neil Young... My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)
Jonny B had left me alone with my thoughts and what remained of Moya, returning up stairs. He didn't want any more weed. With my back to the open kitchen door, the afternoon sun warming my grazed shin through the material of my blood splattered trousers, I drew back on the joint, filling my grieving hole with the smoke.
I watched with puffy eyes as a crow flew from chimney stack to chimney stack, announcing his magnificence with a frup-frup-frup. He leaped from the gable end of his brick perch and swooped down onto the road, hopping sideways towards the dead WPC, and pecked her leg. Blue Corsa man had managed to get to his feet and was walking down the middle of the road towards the supermarket. Still from this distance, I could see the dark puddle of blood next to his car where he had smashed his face on the tarmac.
By now, there must have been about twenty five infected stumbling around the car park. A couple brushed by the abandoned police cruiser with a curious familiarity, whilst another tapped one of my kills with his foot. Mr. Cooper had left the car park and was standing in his garden, staring up at his bedroom window. I saw the curtain twitch and wondered about Mrs. Cooper and their daughter Alice; (yes, I know; what were they thinking?) Were they cowering upstairs, or were they also infected? Had he freaked out, just as the female doctor had in the supermarket, sending him self head first through the double glazing before Phase Two kicked in?
The decapitated head of Moya's killer lay in the compound gawking back at me. I couldn't help but stare. For a moment, I thought I saw its upper lip curl as his dead eyes stared into mine. Somewhere in what was left of his brain, was the virus hanging on? I stood up and stepped over Moya. Using the hand rail to steady my quaking legs, I descended the steps and picked up one of the black recycling boxes, up-ended it, and slid it over to the fence. One of the infected made a grab for it, but it was out of his reach. I walked over to the severed head, pulled it up by the hair and stared into those eyes. They were wide, yellow and streaked with broken blood vessels. I stood on the up ended recycling box and planted the head on top of the fence, forcing the three pronged security spike deep into the brain. The sensation was similar to coring a cabbage, and I found great contentment from it. As I stepped off the box, the car park infected attempted to snag my clothing through the rails, b
ut I was inches away, and a part of me revelled in the fact that they could not reach me. This all seemed perfectly natural to me, and I didn't feel any repugnance at all. It was the new order of things. Of course, I appreciate now that I was on the verge of turning quite mad. I returned to my seated position against the kitchen door, smoked my joint and stroked Moya's still warm head.
The crow flapped its wings and rose up to hover above the female police officer. At first, I thought the down draft from his wings moved her clothing, then I realised that it was her that was moving. She sat, dragging her legs up into a kneeling position. I watched as she slowly got to her feet. Her uniform was in tatters around her midriff; her padded anti-stab vest had been pulled apart and her white blouse was soaked with dark blood. She wheeled and bowled her arms into the air, forcing the crow to hover ever higher. I saw intestines flop from her abdomen like sodden rope, and her throat had been destroyed, clawed open all the way down to her breasts, exposing her bony chest plate. A couple of the car park infected cocked their heads in her direction and began to follow her as she staggered off in the direction of the nature reserve, following Blue Corsa man.
My introduction to Phase Two had been far more acceptable for me than most people. It became clear as the days wore on, that the unfortunate majority of that initial week were the first responders; the ambulance drivers and paramedics, the police; concerned relatives. For those that were able to actually get to a hospital and report their early symptoms, the virus was able to spread at such an alarming rate throughout the medical establishment, that by the time the doctors and nurses became aware that there even was a Phase Two, they were already dead.
Phase One is the incubation period. As I have said; this can vary from person to person, but the outcome is always the same. Fever, thirst, vomiting, violence and seizure; followed by collapse and death. On no account should the victim be approached at this stage. The virus has worked its way throughout the brain and the body is waiting for a trigger. Once activated, the victim will progress quickly into Phase Two and revive. Touch of any kind will trigger a reflex response and you will be attacked. If you get spat on during Phase One; if you come into contact with infected blood or sputum, you will succumb. If you get scratched or bitten, you will succumb. Infection and death are inevitable. Phase Two victims can activate those dormant and infected by Phase One; as they revive and stumble around their environment, they trigger each other like flowers opening in spring sunshine.
It is my suspicion that this is how the virus made its way to the mental hospital; a patient transfer. I can picture an Accident and Emergency doctor serving time on a sixteen
hour shift, presented with a violent individual; unable to diagnose to any professional level, and forced to relinquish care to a specialised security unit in the suburbs.
Had there been a scientist locked away in a secret bunker somewhere mixing pathogenic mutation after pathogenic mutation to a nasty little RNA strand, not knowing, or even more sinister, knowing full well, that if this virus took hold in a human host, it would spread without hindrance or cure? Would he have been aware that there would be a reanimation stage? Would he even care? How many people went to help friends or relatives only to be attacked and become infected themselves? Take Jonny B; he was lucky. The female doctor in the supermarket must have infected dozens of onlookers. How many did they infect? And so on and so forth. It gave the term ‘going viral’ a whole new twist. I considered myself very fortunate indeed.
I tell you this now, not because I saw the WPC get to her feet when all logical reason told me this was not possible. I tell you this now because as I stroked Moya's head, I became aware that she was twitching. My reaction wasn't to be relieved that somehow, my beloved pet had survived being gutted alive. My reaction was to pull away, to avoid looking at her flickering eyelids; to avoid noticing her tongue as it lollygagged from her blood streaked gums like a worm writhing under a stone. My reaction was to grab a kitchen knife from the draining board and drive it through her skull, just above the eyes.
2.5
Ace of Spades
CLUCK… WENT THE CHICKEN!
'Of all the things I've lost,
it's my mind I miss the most...'
Ozzy Osbourne.
I still see Moya padding around the shadows of my psyche. I still hear her nails tap-tapping on the bedroom door. I can still feel her nudging her snout under my chin for a kiss. I still have pockets full of poo bags; every coat or fleece jacket has at least three. Her food and water bowls still sit on the kitchen floor. We were inseparable for eight years and I miss her more than I miss anything about the old ways, or old friends; even old lovers. That said; her corpse lay unceremoniously on the top step for the rest of the curfew, and for that, I am truly sorry. I hope the top dogs in canine heaven will forgive me for this venial offence.
Curfew...
What a joke.
We didn't see any police; except for those taken by the virus. I can’t remember the last time I heard a siren, and I never thought I would miss that sound. A helicopter did do a fly over, dropping hastily drafted leaflets about where to go for the evacuation, but even that was a botched job. Infected roamed the streets in packs and every now and then, fellow survivors carrying what belongings they could ran by, nervously checking over their shoulders. To the south of us, lay another crossroads. We saw an SUV come screaming across the junction from the west, completely misjudge the canver and clip another vehicle that stood motionless at the center of the intersection. It hobbled onto two wheels, hit a lamp post and went airborne over a privet hedge, landing hard on its belly in the school sports field. A passenger or possibly the driver got launched from his seat and spooled through the air like a stuffed toy. The other occupants scrambled to escape the mangled people carrier as the infected children and adults from the schools summer fair promptly advanced across the ankle deep grass; but they had no chance of escape, and I turned away.
Jonny B and I discussed and argued about our options for hours. Should we stay, stick it out? Should we go, take our chances? The utilities were cut off on the morning of day three of the curfew; seven or eight days after the outbreak began... at least in this area, so that helped make our minds up. There was still water in the pipes, and I spent a couple of hours filling every empty bottle or cooking pan I could find. I had boxes of plastic bottles ready to be dumped at the supermarkets recycle centre; they got filled. I filled the bath and just managed to fill the bathroom sink before the pipes ran dry and the TV screen went dark.
My theory... the authorities wanted us to fend for ourselves; to be without. What better way to whittle the weak from the strong? To observe the infection and assess how it spreads. Test the civilian populous to breaking point and see who comes out on top.
The leaflets told us where to assemble and at what time. There would be coaches that would take us to the local airport, where we would be transported to an undisclosed location for medical assessment. It all sounded very Hollywood to me, and those scenarios never ended very well for the protagonists. I was fully prepared to stay put. How the authorities expected us to get to our nearest rally point with the streets full of zombies is crazy.
There...
I've said it.
…ZOMBIES…
We didn’t believe in ZOMBIES; this was something else. They didn’t claw their way out of the grave or stumble around uttering ‘brains’… This was more like a metamorphosis. If an infection gets into an open wound, it will go septic. Maybe that’s what we should call them…
…SEPTIX…
But we've all seen the movies, read the role playing books; if you decide to stay put, turn to page 204. If you decide to not believe your own eyes or to believe that these events are not really happening and shove your head up your ass, then feel free turn to page whogivesafuck.
I prepared a bug out bag that included tin foil, a jumper, a pen knife, a serrated kitchen knife, a rubber torch and what spare batteries I could find; a note pad and
a couple of pencils, some nylon rope from the loft and some fuse wire from under the sink; pliers, a claw hammer, (I had two, Jonny B took the other one.) Duct tape, six bottles of water. A Lighter and a box of matches; bin liners, toilet roll and some doggy poo bags. I stuffed all of this into my back pack and shoved the family size first aid kit from the bathroom on top. I also packed a few tins of baked beans and some of Moya's dry dog food. It tasted like gritty cardboard, but was packed with protein. I put on my old skateboard pads under some cargo pants and my leather jacket, hooking my multi-tool onto my belt. I dug out my old motorcycle gloves too; Black Nitros, padded from the finger tips to the knuckles, with reinforced wrist supports, they were surprisingly still a good fit and gave me lots of movement, considering they hadn't been worn in years. I took my wallet and drivers licence incase I had to identify myself to the authorities, and tied Moya's chain lead around my waist. (I would have raided my workshop, but at this stage of the game, we were under the slightly deranged illusion that we would be getting on a cosy bus and flying off to la-la-land.) We should have stayed put. When in doubt, clucking like a chicken whilst sleeping in your dead dog’s bed is always the safer option.
