Rotting Dead F*cks: An Extreme Novel of Horror, Sex, Gore and the Undead

by Matt Shaw

  The First Reports

  All the television channels had come away from their scheduled programs to report on what was happening across the country, the country- whatever it was, it wasn’t just local. It was countrywide. All of the newsreaders read from the auto-cue with serious tones in their voices. Their expressions were even more serious. All of them were saying the same thing; infected people were attacking anyone and anything. A few of the newsreaders were replaced, on the screen, by various amateur videos from across the country showing the devastation and showing more examples of infected people attacking normal people.

  CCTV footage from the port showed people running from a boat - some cruise liner usually associated with luxurious travel to exotic islands for the rich and well to do. Another angle showed bodies, some twitching, on the top deck of the same liner. Cut away to an airport and people were seen running from that too. Through the glass-paned front of the building it was possible to make out more of the infected attacking vast groups of people who, seconds later, seemed to get up and also join in with the violence. It didn’t seem to matter who the uninfected were - whether they be children, elderly, disabled…They were all fair game and open to attack. Over the footage of the airports and ports - the newsreader advised against travelling to those destinations saying there was no way out to be found there. Sensible to mention it really considering the amount of people who’d have the first thought to just jump on a plane, or boat, and try and leave the country. The footage on screen changed to that of a shaky hand-held camera nature, perhaps taken on a small camcorder or someone’s mobile phone. The footage showed someone being bitten by one of the Infected before someone else came along and pulled them away - a scene very much like the one I had watched at the time of my accident when I had tried to help the man who was attacked. This time, though, the man who pulled the man away was also attacked and bitten. The camera didn’t stop filming though. It stayed focused on the man who was bitten first. He was flailing his arms and legs around. He was seemingly screaming out. An agonised expression on his face; twisted and tormented as though he was desperately trying to fight the infection killing his body as it surged through his bloodstream. And then the man went still - Deadly still - Stood bolt-upright. A second or two later and he moved again - jarred movements. His mouth biting at nothing as though he hoped something would just present itself to be bitten. His eyes cloudy, just as the eyes of the man I’d hit had been. On camera he turned and looked right at us. The camera dropped to the floor and the screen cracked but we could still see enough to know that the newly bitten man was lurching towards where the camera man had been. I’m guessing from the way the camera was dropped - he wasn’t there anymore. No doubt running away as fast as his legs could carry him and I don’t blame him. The television cut back to the news reader back in the comfort - and safety - of his studio as they continued to keep us informed as to what was happening and warn us that - if bitten - we risk the infection too. It is not airborne, the reports said, but it is carried in the blood. It is carried in the saliva. Contamination means certain infection.

  I felt a coldness run through me as my mind couldn’t help but think about all of the horror films I had watched, as a youth, seemingly coming true. Across all the channels the same story but, from flicking between them in an effort to find answers, none of them seemed to give answers as to why and how. More importantly - none of them seemed to say where we should go or what we should do. Most just suggesting to us, for the meantime, to lock our front doors and wait for help to arrive. Not to travel unless we absolutely have to. I turned the television off when Nicola came into the room from her nap. Poor thing had more or less crashed as soon as we got in through the front door. Thankfully - whatever it was spreading out there - it was quiet back at the house, quiet in our little close too. Some of the neighbours cars were missing from their driveways and others were still parked up as though they’d been abandoned, just as I had abandoned my own car on the front lawn, as close to the front door as I could get without actually driving through it. The houses which looked occupied all had their curtains shut as though blocking out the horrors in the real world and shutting the occupants into their own private sanctuary. I wasn’t sure if that would help, if it meant extra protection, but I figured I’d do the same and - when Nicola went off to lie down as I suggested - I went around the house closing the curtains too.

  I gave her a smile, in an effort to hide my fear and show her everything was okay, and asked, “How’s the tummy?” She didn’t come over to where I was sitting in the living room. She just stood there, in the doorway. “Did you hear me?” I asked.

  “Why’s mummy standing in the garden?”

  Dr. Platt

  I was sitting opposite my eleven o’clock appointment with a neutral expression on my face, listening to the wild fantasies he had about raping and killing people and all I could think about was the fact I would make a good poker player. I’m disgusted with my patient. I’m almost scared of him (hence the reason I need to have Darron Hayes sit in, on the appointments, with me). Yet he has no idea what I think about him. He just thinks I am here to listen to his (mildly amusing, at times) rants and issue his prescriptions when he tells me he is running low. I can see Darron in my peripheral vision, sitting to the side (and slightly behind) my patient. Just as well really because he hasn’t quite mastered the same poker face that I have spent years mastering. I couldn’t help but wonder whether this was actually a poker face I had learned or whether I had just become used to the horrors that I hear in this small box room; my office.

  “And how did that make you feel?” I asked when my patient stopped ranting about his latest escapades. A standard question used in order to get more insight into the patient’s mindset. His name was Ted. Ted had been coming to see me for about three months now, originally referred to me via his G.P who was concerned about Ted’s anger issues and general behaviour. Ted was a strange case. He had gone to his doctor to discuss his unbalanced anger issues because they were of concern to him but - on all the times I’ve seen him - he has seemed proud of his temperament. It’s almost as though he isn’t here to get ‘fixed’ as he initially put it, on our first meeting, but rather to brag and sound off about his violent fantasies. I had taken his case to the board, as we do with all new patients, and advised them of my own feelings (being that I was uncomfortable to have him on the streets as he posed a possible threat to others or himself) but they had overturned my suggestion of a possible stay in one of our care facilities - where we could get to know him a little better without outside influence. Apparently it was because that - although he openly spoke about his violent feelings - he had yet to act upon them. He had never been in trouble with the law, he had never acted out his fantasies and he was being cooperative with regards to help offered (in the form of therapy and medications).

  We were getting to the end of our hour together and had barely achieved anything that I had wanted to; another session wasted listening to how he likes to follow pretty, young girls whilst playing rape scenarios out in his head. And they don’t think he is a danger to anyone. Who are they kidding? In my professional opinion - it is only a matter of time before he takes his first steps into acting upon his wants.

  “I wanted to fuck her!” he told me. He was talking about a young girl he’d followed home from the shops. He had gone into great detail about what she was wearing; a short skirt which barely covered her buttocks, a white shirt which was almost see-through and high-heels which accentuated the length of her legs.

  “Did you talk to her?” I asked him. I already knew the answer. He never spoke to the girls he supposedly followed. Part of me wonders whether he even followed the girls in the first place, or even saw them. A little niggling doubt that he’s simply making it all up just to have something of (supposed) interest to say. He shook his head. Of course he didn’t talk to her. He never does. Either he saw the girl and didn’t say anything or he is making the whole thing up and his imaginati
on isn’t quick enough to make up a story about what he said to her. Either way I was getting tired of him. In truth, I was getting tired of all of my patients. I had been doing this for far too long now. Coming up to twenty five years this coming February and it’s the same thing day in and day out. I rarely get to help anyone, as I originally believed I could when I first started all those years ago. More or less, I end up tending just to be a sounding board. A sounding board who can keep people, like Ted heavily medicated.

  “Just remember walking around, you know, with the biggest erection as I thought about what I wanted to do to her. As I thought, you know, about how tight her cunt would be. And wet.” He licked his lips and I had to hide the shiver which ran down my back. He was a scrawny man in his late twenties not attractive but not ugly - just plain, largely let down by his inability to properly groom himself. It was the same routine every time he left the appointment, I’d end up having to spend five minutes spraying the room with air freshener and opening the windows to try and air the place before the next patient came in. The joys of a small room and the necessity to keep the doors closed during my consultations; it really seals in the stink. “I ended up going into a clothes shop,” he said, “just grabbed any old shit from the sides and dashed into the changing rooms. Whacked one off right there and then.” I shifted in my seat as my mind kept screaming at me to just have him sectioned - but it wasn’t that easy. I couldn’t just do it myself. I always needed others to sign off on it and, contrary to what people think, the process isn't that straight forward. “Fucking shot my load all over the mirror with some pretty girl just on the other side of the curtain, waiting for me to finish. She knew what I was doing. I could tell by the smile on her face when I left. She wanted me.” The guy is delusional. “Probably licked that spunk right off the mirror,” he laughed.

  “Listen we’re coming up to the end of the appointment but I think I’d like to try you on some new medication,” I suggested. I didn’t wait for him to confirm whether he was happy to try something new before I started writing out a new prescription on the pad next to my keyboard. “And then I think it would be a good idea to see you again in a week to see how you’re getting on.” We usually had two weeks between sessions but the way he was speaking to me seemed to be getting worse - his fantasies getting more explicit with each appointment. A week would give me enough time to talk to one of my colleagues again, perhaps let them meet him too. See what they think; whether the man is lying about his escapades or whether there is a possibility of him actually doing the acts he is speaking about. If it’s the latter than we have a duty to get him off the street whilst we try and help him. We have a responsibility to the safety of the general public.

  I finished scribbling the notes - on the prescription pad - and tore the top sheet off before handing it to him. He took it with his dirty hand. Filth trapped under the finger nails. He stood up and extended his hand towards me.

  “Until next week then,” he said. I smiled and stood with him before shaking his hand. Sweaty. It’s because of this I have disinfectant in the top drawer of my desk.

  “Yes. If you need to reschedule, please do not hesitate to call in,” I told him. He turned and walked from the room, closing the door again behind him.

  “You get all the colourful characters, don’t you?” Darron said. He wasn’t laughing. If anything he appeared to look sorry for me. He clearly doesn’t envy my position. I just raised my eyebrows as I reached for the air freshener (in the top drawer next to the disinfectant). I started to spray the room and Darron took the moment to leave the room, “I’ll make sure my diary is free for next week,” he informed me. I guess it would have been prudent to check that he was free before making the extra appointment with Ted but - worst case scenario - I can always get someone else to sit in on the session. Perhaps, even, my colleague.

  Darron closed the door as I reached across the desk to open the windows. Instantly I was hit by a sound I wasn’t expecting; the sounds of screaming and distant alarms singing through the mid-morning haze. I leaned across the desk in an effort to try and see what was happening but - considering the level of noise - the road outside seemed eerily deserted. I’m not entirely sure why - perhaps a little spooked - but I slammed the window shut and left the office. There was shouting coming from the waiting area at the end of the short corridor between office and reception and I immediately recognised two of the voices; Darron and Ted. I hurried into the room to find out why they were arguing. They were standing by the front door which was being blocked by the receptionist (not that she could have stopped anyone from leaving).

  “What’s going on?” I asked. They ignored me as they continued to shout at each other. The receptionist was saying it wasn’t safe to leave, Ted shouting that we had no right to keep him here and Darron doing his best to keep the peace. There were other patients, and staff members, in the room too. They were keeping themselves to themselves and all looked uncomfortable with the situation.

  “Let me the fuck out!” Ted screamed again. He went to push the receptionist but was blocked by Darron (who was considerably bigger than Ted, which helped). “You can’t keep me here!”

  “It’s not safe out there!” the receptionist yelled again.

  “You’re all insane!” Ted argued. “It’s you lot who should be having therapy, now get out of my way.”

  “Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?” I shouted.

  The receptionist looked to me, “It’s gone crazy out there…Reports all over the news that people are attacking each other. They’re talking about some kind of infection.”

  “What?” Ted was right, the receptionist (Tina) was the one who sounded as though she needed the therapy.

  “On the television,” Tina continued, “I was watching the news on my break…In the staffroom…They’re attacking each other.”

  “Where? Who?”

  “Everyone and everywhere. It’s gone crazy out there! We can’t leave here! It isn’t safe!” She was pale and shaking. I turned to one of the nurses who was standing in the doorway and asked her to fetch Tina a cup of tea with lots of sugar (to help with the shock) and she kindly obliged. I then turned back to Tina.

  “What are they saying exactly?”

  “There’s been an infection outbreak….”

  “From where?”

  “They didn’t say. They said that it is bringing the dead back to life…”

  I turned to some of the other staff members who were in the waiting area, “Has anyone else seen this?” One of them, a young girl, stepped forward and nodded. “People are attacking each other?” I don’t know why I was finding it so hard to process the information in my mind - I had heard the screaming when I opened the window so I knew something was wrong. And the deserted street. Fair enough it can get quiet from time to time but the road outside that window is rarely completely empty. In fact, I don’t think there has ever been a time when I haven’t seen at least one person walking down it or at least one car driving out there. I looked at Tina who was visibly shaking. With no warning she went to pass out only to be caught by Darron, who had to let go of Ted. He helped her across to a chair, in the corner of the room, and instructed her to take it easy a moment. Ted took the opportunity to run from the building, slamming the door behind him. I hurried over to the door and quickly locked it. I’m not sure what was happening out there or what people think they have seen but - given the reaction of the people in this room - there is little point in taking any chances.

  “Okay no one else leaves then, not until we know what is going on,” I said. Not sure why I’m suddenly in charge but seeing as no one else is keen to step forward - I’m as good a person as any. “We all stay in this room for now. All stay together.”

  Darron piped up, “I’ll go through and bring the television in,” he suggested.

  “Fine.” He left the room and headed for the staffroom. A man on a mission. I turned back to Tina. She was sweating now and looked as though she were
hyperventilating. Her reaction is what scared me more than anything else. Normally a quiet woman, she had seen a lot working the front desk of this establishment, so for something to scare her it had to be serious. I approached her, “How you doing?” I asked as I crouched down next to her.

  “My dad is at home, do you think the carer is still with him?” she said. Her voice was meek. Her father was elderly and needed a lot of care; something she arranged for him a few days of the week to enable her to leave the house and try and live a little.

  “I’m sure he is fine,” I tried to reassure her. “Why don’t you use the phone and give him a call?”

  “I tried but I couldn’t get through.” She started to cry. I didn’t know what to say to make her feel better. Funny, really, considering my line of work. I gave her shoulder a squeeze of reassurance and stood to my full height. “I’m going to go and see where your drink is,” I told her. I hurried from the room before anyone else asked me what we should be doing, or sought reassurance from me. I needed to know what was going on. I needed to see what she’d seen - what had spooked her so. I walked down the corridor and took a left turn into the staffroom. Darron was sitting there, on one of the chairs, leaning forward with his eyes transfixed on the television set. A genuine look of concern on his face. I was hoping he would find some hope in what he saw on the news. I was hoping Tina had just over-reacted but - judging from his face - it was far worse than I had imagined. “What is it?” I asked. He didn’t answer. He tried to, he just couldn’t find the words. I looked at the television screen and baulked at what I saw; absolute pandemonium. I pulled up a chair and sat down next to Darron. “What could have caused this?” I asked him. He didn’t answer me. The way he was fixed upon the screen, I wasn’t even sure that he had heard me.