I inched further back to avoid her grasp, watching with wide, horrified eyes as zombies closed in on her. One swiped at her. It managed to hook its fingers into her mouth and yank her head back, halting her progress. The zombie lent forwards and took a bite out of her close cropped scalp while the first zombie grasped her extended hand and sunk its teeth into her palm.
Watching Elaine get eaten, I’ll admit, I didn’t feel anything other than relief that she was no longer my problem. I couldn’t even manage to hate myself for it.
‘I can’t do anything for you!’ I said, shaking my head.
You know, I can’t imagine how painful it must be to be eaten alive. I tried to imagine it at that very moment as I watched Elaine. Her mouth gaped open in a scream and her eyes rolled back in her head as zombies tore into her flesh. Although I could see it – it was there right in front of me – my mind just couldn’t comprehend such agony. I stood and stared in morbid fascination – guilt at not helping her escape her fate beginning to gnaw at me – until more zombies closed in and swamped her, blocking her from my view.
Strong fingers wrapped around my forearm. I flinched but, glancing to my left I saw Misfit beside me. He gave my arm a tug.
‘Come on,’ he urged, forcing me into action.
We dodged and stabbed our way through zombies as we sprinted towards Kay, Clay and Charlotte. They’d already reached the base of the building. Kay went up first. She grasped a drain pipe with both hands for support while she placed her left foot on the narrow ledge around the front of the downstairs jewellery store. The ledge was only a few feet off the ground and was for decorative effect, but, with both feet on it, it enabled her to reach up and grasp onto a wider ledge that ran just below the window where the man stood. Kay hauled her body up as far as it would go until she had her elbows on the ledge and she reached for the man’s hands. He grimaced as he pulled Kay up until she could find purchase on the ledge with a foot, then the other foot, then the man shifted to the side to give her room to dive through the window.
Charlotte went next, while me, Misfit and Clay fought back the zombies that had us cornered up against the building. As soon as Charlotte had cleared the way, Misfit barked at me, ‘You next!’ As I grasped the drainpipe and hoisted myself up so I stood on the narrow ledge, I glanced back at the zombies as they closed in and I knew that Misfit and Clay would have to fend them off with one less pair of hands as I climbed. I turned back to face the wall, determined to get out of Misfit and Clay’s way as soon as possible. ‘Right behind you,’ said Misfit as I reached up and grabbed the man’s hands. The man pulled me up like he had Kay and Charlotte until I was able to grasp the window frame. Crouching on the ledge beneath the window, I glanced down at Misfit as he stabbed zombies. I realised how much I wanted to kiss him. Fuck. Right then, right at that moment as he fought for his life, I decide that I want to kiss him.
‘Come on!’ I yelled at him now I’d cleared the way. ‘Get a fucking move on!’
I threw myself through the window and nosedived to the floor. I was on my feet in seconds and I darted back to the window. I glanced down to see Misfit shoving Clay, his gloves now around his neck, up the wall first.
‘Hurry!’ I yelled down to both of them. Misfit was all arms, legs and knife as he battled to keep the zombies back.
‘Here,’ said the man as he joined me at the window. He handed me an armful of white china cups and saucers. ‘Just be sure not to hit your friends.’
While Clay climbed, I used the cups and saucers like missiles, like the time me and Kay had used cheap celebrity perfume bottles to help keep zombies back from Liam when we broke into a department store in Chepstow. It worked then, with Liam making it into the store safely.
Once I’d used all my cups and saucers, I turned to see I was in a hairdressing salon and me, Kay, Charlotte and the man took it in turns to grab any makeshift long-range weapons we could. We armed ourselves with scissors, more cups and saucers, glass jarred hair products, you name it, and we used them to throw at the heads of the zombies advancing on Misfit. Apart from a few lucky shots, we didn’t achieve much more than to throw the zombies off balance. But it bought Misfit precious time as he waited for his chance to climb.
Clay used his own upper body strength to hoist himself up onto the ledge on his elbows. He grasped the window frame and I leaned out of the window and grabbed him under the arms. I hauled him in, keen to get him out of Misfit’s way. The others continued to hurl anything they could find at the zombies below so that Misfit could turn his back on them to make his ascent. He began scaling the wall but a zombie grabbed his ankle before he could heave himself up onto the wide ledge. I held my breath, willing him up. Clay had his upper body out the window. He reached down and grasped Misfit’s arms but before he could haul him up, another zombie grabbed a booted foot. Both zombies pulled and Misfit slipped from Clay’s grasp.
‘NO!’ I screamed as Misfit went down into the waiting zombies. I lost sight of him as the zombies swarmed him. ‘MISFIT!’
Clay dived through the window and was standing on the wide ledge, ready to head back down to help Misfit. I tried to climb out but I felt hands on me, holding me in the room. I pulled against them but they wouldn’t let me go. All I could do was watch, my breath held as the zombies squirmed and writhed below. As I looked on, one of the zombies was thrust back into the crowd, then another. As a couple more went flying backwards I saw him. Misfit lay on his back, his right foot kicking out at the zombies that surrounded him. Clay paused on the ledge, watching. Misfit continued to kick the zombies back until he’d cleared enough space to leap to his feet. His knife flew through zombie heads faster than my eyes could follow, and then he dived at the wall, reaching up for Clay who grabbed his hand. I leaned further out of the window and grabbed the waistband of Clay’s jeans to keep him steady so that he could put all his strength into hoisting Misfit up. Misfit’s feet dangled temptingly above the heads of the reaching zombies.
As Misfit’s knees found the ledge, Clay grabbed him around the waist, hoisted him up further and threw him through the window. I let go of Clay and fell onto the floor on my knees beside Misfit. I ran my hands up and down his body.
‘I’m not bit! I’m not bit!’ he said and he sat up. I flung my arms around him and hugged him to my chest.
Once Misfit was back on his feet and had done the back slap, man hug thing with Clay, where Clay shrugged and said it was nothing, like he had just helped him change a tyre instead of helped save his life, we all turned to the man that saved all of us.
‘Hey, you guys put on a good show,’ he said with a grin. ‘I’m Mal. Good to meet you.’
10.30pm
After introductions, Mal asked us to follow him. As we shuffled past modern looking black leather chairs lined up in front of large wall mounted mirrors, awaiting customers that would never come, I briefly considered whether there’d ever come a time when people would care about their appearance again. I mean, not me. Even pre-zoms, the best I hoped for was that my fringe didn’t get a cow-lick but even if it did, I always carried a grip in my bag to clip it back. I’ve never really been bothered about styling. I always preferred the extra half hour in bed in the morning. And don’t get me started on make-up; that shit takes ages to clean off at night. Nah, I’ve always preferred the natural look.
Mal led us through a door, and out into what was once a staff room. It had been set up as a comfy, cosy hideout for one. A kitchenette, with white laminate fronted cupboards and stainless steel handles, black veneer work surface and a sink ran along one wall, with a small circular oak table towards the centre of the room. Once, I imagined the hairstylists would happily have rested their tired legs here while eating sandwiches from shampoo scented fingers.
Mal headed over to the right of the room, to a black leather sofa. He rolled up a pillow and a quilt into a bundle and tossed them to the floor between the sofa and a wood framed armchair. He motioned for us to sit. Me, Misfit and Clay took a seat on the sofa, w
hile Kay sat on the armchair. Charlotte perched on the arm of the sofa and Mal settled himself on a small coffee table that I wasn’t sure would take his weight, but it did, albeit with a little creak.
‘I guess you all could do with a little breather,’ said Mal, smiling but squinting a little from the light pouring in from the tall sash window behind us. ‘I’d offer you a cup of strong, sweet tea for the shock, but I have neither tea nor sugar. I have rain water though. With a good imagination, it tastes like the finest Darjeeling, or the best Columbian Arabica, depending on your preference. The mind could also be convinced to imagine a good Pinot Noir, if you’d rather.’ We sat, trembling and weak, me gripping Misfit’s hand – the right one, emblazoned with the word LOST – staring at this strangely cheerful man. Even Kay was lost for words. ‘Ah! Brandy, I can offer you a shot of brandy.’ Mal looked behind him and indicated to the piles of boxes and bags stacked in the kitchenette, all full of supplies. ‘Yes… no?’ he said, turning back to us.
‘I’m OK,’ I said, finding my voice. ‘Thanks for the help though.’
‘No trouble at all. I see fewer and fewer humans on those streets down there. Most scurry through as quiet as mice. I would miss them if I wasn’t always watching out for them. But you lot, well…’
‘We’re noisy, we know,’ said Kay.
‘Where were you headed?’ asked Mal. ‘Not much around here but zombies and more zombies. And the crowds are getting bigger. So what’s brings you to Zombie Town?’
‘It’s a long story,’ I added.
‘You lost one of yours down there…’
‘She wasn’t one of ours, man. No way,’ said Clay.
‘She’s part of the long story,’ I said.
‘Yeah we’re not normally that noisy,’ said Kay.
‘She was a very troubled lady,’ said Charlotte.
‘She was a fucktard,’ said Kay.
‘She was lonely,’ said Charlotte.
‘OK. Well, it’s always sad when another human goes Z-O-M. But, I guess the bright side is that she slowed a lot of the zombies down enough for the rest of you to escape up here.’
‘Bright side? It’s been a while since there’s been any such thing as a bright side,’ said Kay.
‘There’s always a bright side,’ said Mal, and I noticed even Charlotte frowned in confusion at Mal’s words.
‘In the zombie apocalypse?’ I said.
‘Yes!’
‘Mate, there’s no bright side to this shitty situation,’ said Clay.
‘But of course there is!’
‘A bright side to the zombie apocalypse… how so?’ asked Charlotte.
‘A bright side to the death of loved ones? Mate, you’re sick,’ said Clay.
Mal shifted awkwardly on the coffee table but he continued to sit tall. ‘Listen, were you all – hand on hearts – happy before the apocalypse? I mean really happy. Or did it occur to you how fucked up society was? Yeah, you loved your friends and family. Though friends and family were luxuries that not everyone had back then, but I’m guessing most did. But did you appreciate them back then? Did you appreciate what you had? Or did you moan about it… want more, something different, something better…?’ Mal leaned forwards and glanced at each of us in turn. ‘Before the outbreak, schools prepared the young for a lifetime of labour. We were all sucked into believing that we needed stuff, and in order to get the stuff we had to work to get the money to get the stuff. Working for the stuff made us depressed so we wanted more stuff to make us feel better about working to get the stuff in the first place, but, you guessed it, that stuff was never enough… we wanted more and more. Did you really need all that stuff? No one needed all that stuff, we just wanted the stuff.
‘Since the outbreak, we’ve learned to get by on what we need. We need really very little and the little we have – food, water, company – we appreciate it. We appreciate just getting to the end of the day. We appreciate life. We have learned the value of it. I grew veg on the roof of this place last summer. It was great. I worked hard planting and weeding and watering. It was work but it was satisfying work, honest work, meaningful work. It was work that resulted in me getting fed, not to serve some boss who treats me like shit while getting rich off my efforts.’ Mal let out a sigh. ‘But I guess most of you are too young to fully understand…’ He let that hang in the air a moment before continuing.
‘How much do you lot rely on each other?’ None us of answered, I guess we all realised it was a rhetorical question. ‘A lot, I’m guessing,’ Mal continued. ‘You probably all met since the outbreak, am I right?’ I nodded, certain that he didn’t want me to spoil his lecture with words of my own; he looked like he’d been waiting a while for a captive audience. ‘But I bet you appreciate each other more than your pre-zombie families, and no doubt you have stronger bonds than friends you grew up with. You are family.
‘If you want to know what the bright side of the zombie apocalypse is, it’s that it has made us wake up. It’s allowed us to reclaim our lives. It has made us live instead of allowing our lives to wash over us. It has set us free.’
Mal looked at each of us in turn as we sat and gazed at him through wide unblinking eyes. I had never heard anyone put a positive spin on the zombie apocalypse before. And I had to admit, having digested his words, it was rather convincing. In fact, now that I thought about it, I did recall, pre-apocalypse, more than one Facebook friend posting, ‘Bring on the zombie apocalypse’ statuses on a Monday morning.
But none of them really meant it. No one really wanted everyone to die.
‘You’re wrong,’ I said as I stood up and looked down at Mal. ‘It’s ridiculous to think so many people have died – our loved ones have died – just so the remaining few can be set free. I’ve been cheated out of my future. I was a student, just starting out in life. I could have been anything, and I’ll never know now. Maybe society sucked before, maybe people were stuck in jobs or relationships they hated. But all they had to do was quit and move on, to not fear change. If you think being terrified for your life, not knowing what happened to your family, watching your friends die one by one, never being able to settle anywhere for long before your small bit of peace is shattered and everything you worked hard to build is torn down by dead hands – if you think being tortured by insane humans that are no longer kept in check by a legal system is being set free, then you really are living in a fucking dreamland!’
I stormed out of the staff room and through to the salon. My anger acted as a jet pack, propelling me across the room until the window we entered through halted me. I looked outside, at the zombies staggering below.
After a while an arm wrapped around my waist from behind. I turned to see Misfit sidle up next to me. ‘Is he OK?’ I asked. ‘I didn’t mean to get so cross at him. It’s fair play if he wants to be happy in all this madness. I shouldn’t have…’
‘He’s OK.’
‘Looks like we’re stuck here for now.’ I nodded down towards the zombies. ‘Maybe some of his positivity will rub off on us.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Do you think he’ll let us crash here – after my outburst.’
‘I’m sure he will.’
I nestled into Misfit’s side and he tightened his grip around my body, resting his cheek against the side of my head. ‘You know,’ he began in not much more than a whisper. ‘I sorta agreed with him. I mean, to me, all this crap has been worth it.’ I turned my head so I could look into his eyes.
‘Huh?’
‘It’s been worth it because it led me to you.’
January 2, 7am
After a little timeout yesterday evening, I sheepishly rejoined the others in the staff room. I apologised to Mal for yelling at him but he was like, ‘Not a problem. We all need moments like that to get all the frustration out and find a perspective.’ He even found a bright side to my tantrum.
Mal produced a bottle of brandy. He found six dusty mugs in a cupboard in the kitchenette and poured a shot of brandy i
nto each. I helped by passing them round to the others. Mal motioned for me to sit on the sofa but I shook my head and sat beside Misfit who’d settled himself on the floor using the bundle of bedding Mal shoved out the way earlier as a cushion. Misfit leaned forwards and pulled the bundle along so that I could rest against it too.
‘Why a hair salon?’ I asked Mal.
He shrugged. ‘It’s my own little castle in the sky.’
‘But it’s not very… homely,’ said Charlotte.
‘Well, that’s the thing,’ said Mal. ‘Looters pass by because they don’t think there’d be anything worth stealing up here. I mean, who’s that bothered about shampoo and hair dye these days. It’s taken me a while to stockpile all this lot,’ he nodded towards the bags and boxes in the kitchenette. ‘And in the spring I’ll get the roof garden going again – you’d be amazed at how much you can grow in such a small space – and the last thing I want is to attract trouble. Up here I’m out of sight, out of mind. But I have a good view of what’s going on down there.’
‘But still,’ I said. ‘A house has got to be more comfortable.’
‘I tried a house,’ said Mal. ‘It’s how I learned the out of sight, out of mind theory.’
‘Or out in the country somewhere,’ said Charlotte.
‘Yeah, you said it yourself, man,’ said Clay. ‘Tons of zombies in the town centre – fuck that.’
‘I can’t normally stand the country,’ said Kay. ‘It’s full of mud and shit. But I’d take that over hanging about in a town centre for too long these days.’
‘I tried the country house,’ said Mal, a tightness in his voice. ‘I wasn’t always alone, you know,’ he added, his mood darkening. The cloud shifted so fast that I wondered if it had been there at all and with a mask of a smile Mal said, ‘Anyone for a top up? I’ve got another few bottles of this fine liquid if anyone’s interested.’
‘Hell yeah, I’m interested,’ I said, raising my mug. For all his positivity, Mal had his story, just the same as the rest of us. And I got the feeling, based on the, “I wasn’t always alone” remark, his was pretty bleak. Sometimes those with the biggest smiles hide the greatest sorrow.
Blog of the Dead (Book 3): Lost Page 6
