‘Ashford got much of a zombie problem?’ asked Misfit.
‘Towns are always more populated than the countryside,’ said Elaine. ‘And I’ve noticed a few large hordes pass through. It’s as if as they get weaker they’re teaming up – strength in numbers and all that. It’s like a survival instinct, one even more sophisticated than the need to consume flesh, is kicking in and uniting the filthy buggers.’
‘Large? How large? Anything we should worry about?’ I asked.
Elaine shrugged. ‘Well, let’s just say they’re too large for me to deal with on my own. I’ve had to abort mission on more than one occasion. I don’t like doing that.’
‘Well, keep chipping away,’ I said – sort of sarcastically.
‘Yeah and good luck to you, like,’ said Clay. ‘I can appreciate the “can do” attitude, you know?’
‘Thanks.’
As we talked I had shifted so that I brought one of my legs up and I was now sitting sideways on the back of the sofa. From where I perched, I could see everyone’s reflections in the blank TV screen, like they were the stars in a soap opera or something… this wasn’t really happening, zombies weren’t real and it’s just some TV show that I could switch off at any time and resume my real life. I glanced at Misfit’s reflection. He stood at the foot of the stairs with his hand on the banister, looking at the others through the stands of fair hair that fell into his face.
I miss TV. To be honest, there wasn’t ever anything worth watching. Well, hardly ever. Just boring soaps and cooking programmes and rubbish like The X-Factor or Big Brother. I would moan about them but, I’ll admit, I used to get sucked in to them. I used to love The Next Top Model programmes. I don’t know why but I used to be quite obsessed about that show, probably because I’m nothing like the girls on it. I could never have been a model. I was always thin enough, I suppose, even before the apocalypse but, I don’t know, I always hated to see myself in photos. I was always the one that was caught pulling a funny face – and not intentionally – or looking really awkward like I hadn’t quite grown into my own skin.
I would never have made it as a model but I wonder what I would have been if the world hadn’t have got completely fucked? My ambition had been to be a writer, so I suppose I’m not far off, even in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. I write, therefore I am a writer, I suppose. Does it matter that no one reads what I write? Maybe they will one day. A chill ran down my spine at the thought that if someone did find this diary and read it, it would probably mean I was dead. Nobody else reads a person’s diary until that person is no longer around to stop them, right?
‘What do you think, Sophie?’ I was snapped back to the present by the question.
I turned to look at Misfit. ‘Huh?’
‘What do you think?’ he repeated.
‘What do I think about what?’
‘The supplies… running low… we could do with stocking up…’
‘Uh, yeah.’ Lack of sleep, together with the fact that I had drifted off into my own little world left me feeling confused and a little faint.
‘Sweetie, we were just discussing that seeing as Elaine knows the area that she could point us in the direction of the nearest supermarket,’ said Charlotte.
‘There’s no need,’ I said, wanting to be rid of her.
‘Of course there’s a need,’ she declared. ‘There’s nothing around here – we’re in the middle of nowhere – but there are plenty of supermarkets in Ashford itself. Only most of them are pretty low on stock. There’s a Waitrose that still has supplies in it,’ said Elaine, addressing only me – I guessed the others had been concentrating first time around. ‘I’m happy to show you. It would be easy to go the wrong way if you’re not familiar with the area and end up wasting precious time and resources.’
‘We’re–’
‘You’d be fools not to take me up on the offer.’
‘I…’ I realised I probably would be a fool not to accept help, even from a fruit loop. ‘Oh, yeah, um, OK. Thanks Elaine,’ I said. ‘That’ll be a big help.’
For the first time since leaving, I felt uneasy at being away from Folkestone, a town I had grown to know well. Was I doing the right thing by dragging the others along on my mission?
6pm
It took us just over ten minutes to drive to Waitrose in Ashford. Elaine explained that there were a few supermarkets dotted around the area but only Waitrose was worth visiting, the others having been picked clean and one, a Tesco’s, having been lost in a fire long before she arrived in the area. We parked as close to the store’s entrance as we could, then me, Misfit, Clay and Elaine climbed out and headed for the store.
My feet crunched over crumbs of glass from the smashed front doors. Elaine had assured us that there were still supplies inside. I hoped that she was right – that whoever busted the doors with such determination hadn’t been so determined as to come back and clear the place out.
I needn’t have worried. A dent had been made in the stock, but there was still plenty left for us to have our pick. Me and Misfit grabbed a trolley each and wheeled them along the aisles while Clay and Elaine filled them with canned goods. Clay placed his cans in carefully – no doubt trained by shopping trips with his mum – Elaine, however, had none of Clay’s discipline and, instead, dropped the cans in heavily so they clattered and clanged in the bottom of the wire frame of the trolley.
‘Ssh,’ I said to her. ‘You’ll attract–’ Too late. I heard a groan and the sound of shuffling feet but couldn’t yet see anything. I stopped my trolley and put a hand out to halt the others. Misfit already had his knife raised, his feet wide and steady, his ears straining.
‘Well don’t just stand there,’ said Elaine, her knife raised. ‘That won’t get anything done… other than get us killed.’ She had glanced at me as she said the last bit and I couldn’t help feeling like I had been blamed for something that hadn’t happened. But as Elaine ran off around the corner of the aisle, hollering like a kid whose sweets had just been stolen, I glanced at Misfit and Clay and shrugged my shoulders. They looked equally as perplexed.
We emerged from the end of the aisle to see Elaine high kick a zombie in the head with a spike heeled boot. It staggered back and she used the opportunity to stab another zombie through the ear with her knife. Five more were staggering towards her from the back of the store, while another two lumbered around from the next aisle. I dived on those two, seeing as I was the closest to them, while Misfit and Clay darted past me to help Elaine.
The zombie of an old man waddled towards me, its trousers around its ankles making its movements awkward. Luckily I couldn’t see anything above its shrivelled knees due to the woollen coat that hung loosely on what I guess used to be a portly frame. As I plunged my knife through its eye, its body – withered and dried, reminding me of the pale dehydrated veggies in a Pot Noodle – almost disappeared under its ample coat. It collapsed to the floor like the Wicked Witch of the West when she melted at the end of The Wizard of Oz. I pulled my knife from its head and buried it into the skull of the next zombie. Glancing up I saw another zombie heading my way from the end of the aisle. This one had once been a young mum. It wore pale pink tracksuit bottoms and a biker jacket over its white sweatshirt. It still clutched its kid’s pushchair, wheeling it ahead of itself as it lurched in my direction. The bloody pushchair, I was relieved to see, was empty.
I didn’t dwell too long on what had become of the former occupant. Instead, I put a foot on the seat and gave it a shove back. The force caused Zombie-Mum to stagger backwards, where it lost its footing and went down with a crack of its head on the hard floor, busting its skull open. Thick black blood pooled around its head as it lay twitching on the ground with the pushchair on top of it. I walked around so I stood over the zombie before going down on my haunches beside it, driving my knife down, right between its eyes. It went still and its claw-like hands finally released the pushchair, its arms falling to its sides.
I glanced up to see
Elaine standing at the end of the aisle staring at me. I stood and walked in her direction. As I neared her she said, ‘I’m beginning to wonder how you lot have survived for so long.’
‘What?’ I said, stopping and gazing at her with wide eyes.
‘I just noticed a few bad habits.’
‘What?’
‘You all have bad habits, not just you, Sophie. But there’s nothing a bit of professional training can’t sort out.’
‘What?’
Elaine smiled at me and placed a black blood splattered hand on my arm. ‘There’s room for improvement. But, overall, you’re not too bad.’ And before I could repeat my mantra of ‘What?’ she turned to Clay and Misfit, who were stood behind her, their brows creased, and added, ‘Right, let’s get the supplies in the car, shall we? Overall, not bad work team.’
Outside in the car park things didn’t get any better. While me, Misfit and Clay packed the food into the boot of the Mazda, Elaine picked up a tin can and began swiping it along the metal cage of the trolley.
‘For fuck’s sake!’ I snapped. ‘Shut up, Elaine!’
Misfit’s hand shot up and grabbed the can, his fingers clenched over Elaine’s, halting her. ‘I don’t think that’s a great idea, do you?’ he said, staring into her eyes.
‘It’s called utilising every opportunity,’ said Elaine.
‘It’s called being a fucking idiot,’ I said. I could see that the racket Elaine had made had already attracted a few zombies. I watched as around ten weaved their way through the abandoned cars ahead of us. ‘We’re just going to have to leave the rest of this stuff and get out of here now,’ I said nodding to the remaining canned goods. I guess we should have put them into carrier bags for easier transporting instead of straight into the trolley. Hindsight and all that.
‘I have a quota to fill,’ said Elaine. She pulled her hand from Misfit’s and dropped the can into the trolley before darting off towards the first of the zombies that staggered out from the parked cars and into the road between us and them. She hollered as she went; a call out for any nearby zombies. I could see more zombies responding to her as increasing numbers began staggering towards us from all directions.
‘Clay, grab her and drag her back here. Bash her on the head if you have to. We have to get out of here now!’ I said as me and Misfit threw a few more cans into the boot.
‘I can’t do that. She’s a woman.’
‘Gah,’ I said and I shoved past Clay, heading for Elaine.
Misfit grabbed my arm and pulled me back. ‘Let’s leave her. She’s nuts. She’ll get us killed.’
‘I can’t,’ I said and I pulled away from him.
Elaine had stabbed the first few zombies before I reached her, and by the time Misfit and Clay joined us, a sizable crowd was closing in. Around six had emerged from the store and more were coming from the left and right of the road, cutting us off from the Mazda. I stabbed and sliced the ones near me, all the time cursing our new friend and my complete inability not to help people. Clay cut his way through the crowd with his spiked boxing gloves, while Misfit’s blade darted in and out of brains like a piston.
I could see Elaine had got herself surrounded. So, who has the skills now? I thought, rather pettily as I dealt with the zombies around me with speed and accuracy. But then I saw something I never thought I’d see. Elaine launched herself at the nearest lamp post and with her hands spaced wide apart, she lifted her body so her legs stuck out sideways and she swung herself around the pole, kicking out at zombie heads with her spiked heels. She lowered her feet to the ground and, still holding onto the pole she flicked her entire body over 180 degrees, spiking two zombies with the one smooth move.
Most of the zombies closest to us had been slain, so me and the two guys were able to stand and watch Elaine swing herself up and around the pole, taking out the last of the zombies around her with her spiked heels. It was a strange and uncomfortable experience, like watching your mum dirty dancing and realising with a queasy horror that she’s actually good at it. Better than you would be if you ever had a go – but of course you never would, not over anyone’s dead body.
After we got back to the Oast house – having dropped Elaine off at the post office on the way – me, Misfit and Clay told Charlotte what had happened at the supermarket, about Elaine’s weird behaviour and her apparent death wish and passive-aggressive streak. I left Charlotte – who was trying to understand why Elaine would act that way, desperate to find the good in her – to help the other two unload the car while I headed up to check on Kay.
Kay looked pale but she was sat up in bed cleaning her axe with an old t-shirt. She glanced up at me when I entered the room and lay her axe across her lap.
‘How you doing?’ I asked her.
‘Alright.’
‘You look a lot better. We thought–’
‘That I was a gonna,’ Kay finished. ‘I know. I’ve had it all from Charlotte.’
‘OK. I guess a lot happened and you forgot to take your pills.’
‘Yep.’
‘Cos you wouldn’t give up, would you… cos the world would implode or… pigs would fly or something, if that ever happened, right?’
‘Yep.’
‘But you’re OK now?’
‘Yep.’
‘Good.’
‘So who the fuck was that in here last night?’ asked Kay.
‘Her name’s Elaine. Nutter alert.’
‘I guessed that from the way she burst in here.’
‘She’s worse than you think.’
‘What?’
‘Well, we thought she was sort of OK. Well, apart from the fact that she broke in here and tried to kill you in your sleep. But in some ways that was kind of understandable,’ I said with a shrug. Kay raised her eyebrows at my last remark and then shrugged. ‘I thought she was just a bit eccentric,’ I continued. ‘Turns out she’s stark raving mad. She took us to a supermarket to get supplies and she kept making a ton of noise to attract zombies wherever we went.’
‘What the fuck… Why?’
‘Her quota.’
‘She sounds like a bloody liability.’
‘Oh, she is. If she tries that shit at every opportunity, sooner or later someone is going to get bitten. I think we need to get out of here as soon as we can. You OK to head off first thing tomorrow?’
‘I’m good.’
‘Great. I’ll let the others know not to bother unloading all the supplies. And we can get the hell out of here before Elaine gets us all killed.’
December 31, 9am
OK, so we tried to leave.
Clay wasn’t 100% happy with moving Kay so soon after infection had almost killed her. I admit, she looked pale and worryingly thin, but, like I said to him, ‘She only has to sit in a bloody car.’ Kay said pretty much the same to him when he voiced his concern to her, only she added ‘fucktard’ to the end of her sentence. She was eating and taking her antibiotics, her temperature was normal and the bite wound was healing nicely. Her emotional and psychological recovery, I wasn’t so confident about.
We were up, packed and ready to go just after sunrise this morning, but who should show up on a big black motorbike before we had chance to get in the Mazda…? Yep, Crazy Cleanser, or whatever she calls herself. Elaine drove through the gate, opened just moments before by Clay, and passed through into the Oast house’s grounds. She wasn’t wearing a helmet, which is why I recognise her straight away, but she still wore the leathers. As she climbed off the bike, I saw something painted on its side in white. I focussed on it and made out a biohazard sign, badly executed, with the words ‘The Cleanser’ scrawled around it in a circular design. I raised my eyebrows and tried not to laugh as Elaine strutted up to us, her spiked heels clip clopping on the tarmac drive.
‘You’re leaving?’ she said, her face stern. ‘You didn’t tell me you were leaving.’ She pushed her glasses further up the bridge of her nose as she stared at each of us in turn, settling finally on me.
/> ‘We never got the memo that says we have to tell you what we’re doing,’ said Kay, her axe firm in her hand, despite the slight trembling in her legs.
Elaine ignored Kay and spoke directly to me. ‘You’re a small group.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I guess.’
‘Did you start off small?’
‘No. There were others, but…’
‘You need me,’ said Elaine, resting her right hand on the Mazda’s roof and tapping her long red painted nails on the metal. I tried not to let the repetitive noise annoy me as I think it was designed to do. ‘Your people died because as a team you’re sloppy. No discipline. I can teach you discipline. You saw the way I fought yesterday, right?’
Her words, however, annoyed the fuck out of me and that I couldn’t hide so easily.
‘I’m all good for swinging round on poles,’ I said dryly.
‘Swinging on poles?’ said Kay.
‘Yeah, it’s one of her zombie killing moves,’ I said. Everyone stared at Elaine and then, as if we suddenly realised we’d rather just get the fuck out of there rather than listen to any explanations from Elaine, we all turned away and burst into action, making moves to get going.
Not easily deterred, Elaine cleared her throat. ‘I used to be a pole dancer,’ she began, stopping us, ‘before the outbreak. It was the only way I could support myself after my husband… left. But, you know what? It taught me discipline. It gave me strength, core strength. Focus. It prepared me for life in the apocalypse in ways you wouldn’t even guess. I’m not suggesting you all start pole dancing, but I can – will – turn you into more efficient killers.’
‘Efficient killers?’ said Kay, stepping forwards. ‘I’ll show you what an efficient killer is…’
‘Like Sophie said…’ It was Misfit who spoke and he put an arm out to halt Kay. ‘… we’re good.’
‘If we all concentrate on at least thirty zombies a day, every day, that’s at least one-hundred and eighty zombies each day. We could probably push that up to at least two-hundred. That–’
‘Would still leave a good – what – sixty million or so zombies to get through in the UK alone,’ said Clay.
Blog of the Dead (Book 3): Lost Page 4
