5pm
The others are all a little confused with my about-turn. I don’t want to leave my family home and, thankfully, Mark isn’t going anywhere either. This morning, shortly after I finished writing my diary entry, I had a word with him. ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ I said as I nibbled on some stale crackers for breakfast.
‘I know,’ he said, his face already healing from the pummelling he received from Misfit. ‘But I still feel like crap being the one to explain to you what happened to your family. I guess you were hoping to find them alive, right?’
‘If I’m honest I always knew they were dead. My dad had emailed me early on in the outbreak to tell me my little brother got bitten. Then I never heard from my parents again. Yeah, I’d hoped they’d got away but I knew in my heart of hearts they hadn’t. Coming here was just to get closure and you’ve given that to me. I’m sorry I reacted the way I did.’
‘It’s understandable. Sorry I killed your family.’
‘It’s understandable.’
‘If it’s any consolation, I also killed my own family – once they were already dead,’ he added that last bit quickly. ‘I’m not a serial killer or anything.’
‘I got it,’ I said. ‘But it’s not really any sort of consolation, to be honest. It doesn’t make me feel better knowing that you had to do that.’
‘No, I guess not. So, you guys are going to stay on here for a bit?’
‘For a bit,’ I said.
‘I’m glad about that,’ said Mark, managing a small smile.
‘You don’t mind us being here?’
‘Nah. I mean, it’s your place so you’ve more right to be here than me. And, if you’re happy for me to stay on, I’ll be glad of the company.’
‘Of course you can stay, Mark. Don’t be silly. Friends are few and far between in this fucked up world.’
‘Never a truer word spoken,’ said Mark.
Mark had been sleeping in my parents’ room since he arrived here. Last night we all just slept where we fell but if we were staying for a bit we realised we’d have to organise ourselves a little in the modest three bedroom terrace. I was worried Mark would be a bit funny about me asking him to move so Charlotte and Kay could have the double bed, but he was more than happy to switch to Jake’s old room. I couldn’t go in there again, not with all his superhero stuff, my heart couldn’t take it. So Mark and Clay took that room, with Mark in the bed and Clay on a blow-up bed on the floor. Misfit agreed to take the sofa.
I noticed that Mark had gathered up all his sketch pads and stuffed them into a black backpack that he kept slung over one shoulder. Since our chat at breakfast, I haven’t seen much of him today because he’s spent most of it in Jake’s – his and Clay’s room. I wondered if he’d always be that allusive or if he just felt a little out of place in a group where we’ve all known each other for so long and been through so much together. Time will tell.
January 5, 10am
So things got a little awkward last night.
We’d had a modest dinner made up of what few supplies we had left combined with what little food Mark had scavenged from nearby houses. Sometimes, as I’m nibbling on stale crisp bread or spooning cold, out of date soup into my mouth, I think about all those times before the outbreak when I gorged on a takeaway or a massive family meal, getting to the point even though I’m full of crispy roast potatoes or chicken tikka masala, I’m still ramming food into my gob because it takes tastes so good and I just can’t stop. With a bursting stomach I’d sometimes have to admit defeat and scrape the last few bits into the food recycling. What a waste. What I wouldn’t give for even those last precious scraps. Shit, even just to lick the plate.
Gone are the days of choice, when you could head into a restaurant or café and order whatever you fancied off the menu. The post apocalyptic diet consists of whatever you have found that doesn’t have mould on it or doesn’t look shrivelled beyond all recognition. A lot of it is stale. Crisps – when you can find them – no longer live up to their name. And some of the canned stuff we find has past its best before date and lost most of its flavour, though most of the canned food is still good – just boring. But it keeps us alive.
Anyway, back to the story – after dinner I watched Misfit prowl the downstairs rooms. A restless hunter, he stood at the living room window for a while, his fingers twitching as they held the curtain open just a little way – we had the room lit by a few candles and preferred not to advertise our whereabouts to zombies and humans alike – then he wandered out of the room and through to the dining room. I stood and, carrying my empty plate, I followed him.
I found him in the kitchen. He stood with his back to me right at the end of the galley kitchen, looking out into the darkened back garden through the glass in the back door. I placed my plate on the side and walked up behind him. If he heard me approach – and with Misfit’s keen hunter’s hearing I knew he would have – he chose not to respond and kept his eyes fixed outside.
In the narrow space there was no room for me to stand beside him so I stopped just behind him and gazed over his shoulder. I could see our reflections in the glass and with only a couple of candles at the other end of the room, I could see past our images and out into the winter evening darkness outside. I could even make out the dark shape of the fallen fence panel. Me and Misfit watched in silence as the panel shifted slightly, then again and a few moments later a dark figure lurched through the gap. The zombie lumbered around the garden oblivious to us. It stumbled in the long grass, its rotten arms swinging gracelessly. On the patio it bumped into a wrought-iron chair. It clumsily righted itself and carried on with its gormless inspection of the garden. It still didn’t see us. It was like we were stood behind a one way mirror.
Misfit turned suddenly, startling me. I had moved in so close that I had been resting against his back and left shoulder. Now we were practically nose to nose, and would have been if he wasn’t that little bit taller than me. He put his hands on my waist and held me. I could feel how warm they were through my shirt and t-shirt beneath. He pressed himself against me, pushing me back slightly so my lower back met with the work surface and I had nowhere to escape to. Not that I wanted to escape. Maybe before – when I still had Sam on my mind and the guilt his memory evoked within me – but not now. Misfit slid his right hand up and brushed my cheek, moving his fingers down until they reached my lips. He traced the outline of my mouth and I gasped, opening my mouth a little. His hand carried on until it snuck around the back of my neck and he held me like that, leaning his head towards me – his mouth heading towards mine.
My breathing came fast and I tingled all over. I wanted nothing more than to kiss Misfit right then – OK, I’ll admit, there was something I wanted even more, but a kiss would certainly be a good place to start. With his lips millimetres from my own, a loud BANG to my right made the both of us jump. We stopped and, rigid but still in each other’s arms, we snapped out heads towards the back door to see the zombie slamming its withered, claw-like hands against the glass.
‘Shit fuck!’ I said, my heart almost bursting from my chest to deliver itself through the glass and into those ravaged hands.
I felt Misfit’s body relax against mine and he began to laugh. I joined in, the tension dissipating with the giggles, but as he turned his head towards me and looked deep into my eyes I took a sharp intake of breath as passion took over once more.
Misfit leaned in but I put my hand up, my fingers touching his lips, halting him. ‘Not here,’ I said. ‘Not with that thing perving at us. Come on,’ I said, taking one of Misfit’s hands and leading him through the kitchen.
I couldn’t hear any talking from the living room and I guessed the others may have headed up to bed already. At the foot of the stairs, I considered whether to shove Misfit through into the living room, onto the sofa, or if I could wait until we got up to my room. We paused, wrapped in each other’s arms, our bodies pressed together. I placed my hands on either side of his face, ready to pul
l his mouth down to mine when we heard another noise – this one a dragging sound from the landing upstairs.
Me and Misfit pulled apart and glanced up the staircase. I saw an inflated blow up bed wavering at the very top.
‘What the…?’ I began but then Clay’s face, complete with wide smile, appeared around the side of the bed, looking down at us.
‘Look out below,’ he said and he launched the inflatable bed down the stairs. It slid down, followed by Clay himself trotting behind it. The bed forced me and Misfit apart as it came to a stop between us. ‘Alright,’ said Clay as he neared the bottom. He lifted the bed and shoved it clumsily through to the living room. Me and Misfit followed.
‘What you doing?’ I asked.
‘Moving down here,’ said Clay as he positioned his bed in the middle of the room, alongside the sofa. ‘I felt a bit awkward sharing with a stranger,’ he added, his voice low and conspiratorial.
‘Clay, we were strangers not long ago,’ I said, coming further into the room. ‘You never minded sharing with us.’
‘It’s different. You guys are, well… Mark just sits there drawing in his pad and he’s a bit odd, like. If I go near to take a look, he shuts the pad and just sits looking at me with this sort of dumb look on his face. I can’t relax in there with him.’ Clay sat down on his bed. ‘So I thought I’d come and keep my buddy Misfit company, like.’
‘Well, mate, I’m…’
‘Thought we could tell a few ghost stories, like we’re having a camp out, like I used to with my sisters.’
‘The thing is Clay…’ I began but stopped as I realised I couldn’t say… me and Misfit were just about to get it on, if you know what I mean… so my words just petered out.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ Me and Misfit looked at each other. ‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ I said with a weak smile.
He managed an equally weak smile. ‘Night, Soph.’
I cast a glare at Clay and stomped off up the stairs to bed alone.
I couldn’t sleep. What was it with Clay? I wondered. Why was he always there when I wanted to get close to Misfit? I tossed and turned and wondered if I should sneak down to see if Misfit was still awake. I didn’t. I didn’t want to look desperate.
4pm
With supplies dwindling to virtually nothing, it was agreed earlier that me, Clay and Mark would head out to scavenge the local area for food, while Misfit – armed with directions from me – would go and stalk Stoke Park. Charlotte and Kay remained at the house to prepare a fire to cook whatever Misfit caught, and also to fix the fence panel and make the place more secure.
At around lunch time, I said goodbye to Misfit with an even greater pang of separation anxiety than usual. We were stood on the front step outside the house while I waited for Clay and Mark. Just me and Misfit. He leant forwards and kissed me on the forehead, the fingers of his free hand brushing my cheek. In his other hand he held his hunting knife, while his backpack containing the rest of his knives was over his right shoulder.
‘Be careful,’ I said close to his ear.
‘You too.’
‘I will.’
He pulled away from me and nodded before turning and trotting down the steps to the street. On light feet, he darted off down the road and disappeared out of view. I smiled to myself as I watched him leave, despite hating seeing him go – I knew how much he wanted to be out there, amongst trees and all things green and natural. I knew how much he despised being hemmed in.
‘Ready, Soph?’ I turned to see Clay, his spiked gloves hanging around his neck, step through the front door. Mark followed, his pickaxe held by his side – much too much of a big clumsy weapon for me – and his backpack on his shoulder. I held my knife in my right hand, my hammer through my belt.
‘Yes, ready,’ I said. I bit my tongue to stop myself from commenting on how it was me stood out there waiting for them so of course I was bloody ready but sarcasm can get you into trouble.
Clay kept pace with me and Mark – the two of us were familiar with the area but it was completely unknown to Clay – and we headed to the end of my road and onto Guildford Park Road. As we strode past the hair and beauty salon on the corner, we jumped at the sound of a thud. We each turned to see a zombie inside the salon, slamming its putrid palms against the bay window, its eyes on us.
‘Not the best advert for their services, like, huh?’ said Clay. I responded with a snort. I couldn’t laugh. I recognised the zombie. Vanessa Wright. I had gone to school with her. She used to be a lovely girl, before she became a zombie. I remember she’d been really into horse riding and she had a houseful of pets. I saw her feeding a squirrel bits of sandwich out of her hand once, and she told me once she had tamed a fox. She fed it scraps and dog food and it used to waltz right into the house if anyone left the kitchen door open. When she wasn’t in school uniform, she would be dressed in old battered jeans with holes in the knees and an old t-shirt and would usually be covered in mud. Even when she was in uniform, her tights would have mud on the knees. In the summer when it was too hot for tights, her knees would be covered in mud or scrapes. She always seemed to have a plaster somewhere from where she’d fallen out of a tree or been ripped to shreds by blackberry bushes or thistles from playing out in some wild bit of land. I always imagined she’d be a vet or park ranger or something, rather than a hairdresser. Now she’s a zombie.
‘So, you from around here?’ I asked Mark as we walked.
‘No. Well, I’m originally from Kent but I’d been living in Manchester for a few years before the outbreak. My family were all down in the South, so after things calmed down a bit I made my way back to Kent to look for them. I just found them too late.’
‘Sorry.’
Mark shrugged but said nothing.
‘How long have you been in Guildford?’
‘Not long,’ said Mark, rather quickly. ‘After I left my parents’ place in Staplehurst, I travelled around the South for a bit and ended up in Surrey a few months ago. I go off now and then but I like my… your place, so I tend to come back. I’ll probably head off somewhere new soon – keeps the ideas fresh.’
‘The ideas?’ asked Clay.
‘My artwork.’
‘Yeah, I noticed you like a bit of drawing, man. What’s that about?’
‘I’m a comic book artist.’ We had reached the Co-op on Madrid Road. A few zombies staggered around outside. ‘I used to publish one on the web, a new section each month, weirdly enough about the zombie apocalypse. But it broke out on this huge cruise ship. It was called Ship of the Dead.’
‘Sounds cool,’ I said.
‘Yeah, it was pretty popular, had a big following. There was a group of survivors in it that had to battle all the other passengers on the ship that’d turned into zombies. Once they’d managed to secure the ship, they had to start heading off to islands and stuff to get supplies and they’d run into other survivors and zombies and shit. And I’d kill off some of the characters, just to keep the readers on their toes… no one was safe, not even their favourites.’
‘Awesome,’ I said. ‘So you still write it, even now?’
‘Not that one, no,’ said Mark. ‘It’s a new series and I use what I come across myself in the actual apocalypse to inspire the narrative.’
‘Cool,’ said Clay, slipping his gloves on as we approached the zombies that were lumbering towards us now they had seen us coming. I pondered on whether it was ‘cool’ and decided that it wasn’t. The zombie apocalypse was not remotely cool. And the fact that life wasn’t just imitating art but art was imitating life did my head in. ‘Does that mean we’re in it?’ Clay continued.
Mark shrugged. ‘Yeah, you’re all in it.’ He raised his pickaxe and drove it through the top of a zombie’s head.
I stabbed one of the zombies, while Clay skewered the last three – BAM BAM BAM!
‘You’ll have to let us have a look,’ I said. ‘Seeing as we’re the new stars.’
Mark shrugged again
. ‘Maybe.’ He shrugged once more. ‘It’s more of an illustrated diary, I guess. Not really meant to be shown to anyone.’
The inside of the food store was gloomy and every bit as cold as outside, maybe colder. My breath came out in little puffs of white. It was a small local store so it didn’t take long to check the place was clear. I always make a point of double checking behind the counter in small stores like this, what with having watched many zombie movies where one always leaps out from behind a counter to bite someone, just as the survivors thought they’d got away with it. But I found nothing other than a murky, dusty, musty stillness and a pair of old slippers amongst the carrier bags.
I slid my knife though my belt to free up my hands while Clay slid off his gloves and hung them around his neck. Mark had no choice but to hold onto his pickaxe. I glanced around the store. The shelves were not far off being empty.
‘This is why I started breaking into houses,’ said Mark, noting my dismay. ‘Less and less food left out here. I hardly ever see other survivors, other than the occasional gang with big enough numbers to be cocky. Most regular people – including me – tend to stay out of sight these days. But they are there, scurrying about like little mice. The emptying shelves are testament to that.’
‘Well, it will have to do,’ I said, pulling the reusable shopping bag from my back pocket and unfolding it. ‘Breaking into homes is time consuming and you never know if what’s in there is worth the effort.’
‘Tell me about it,’ said Mark. ‘I get shit all some days. But it’s all inspiration.’
I could hear the dragging of feet and groaning from outside which was all the inspiration I needed to hurry the other two on. We had two shopping bags but found enough to barely fill one. I wasn’t too worried. I knew Misfit would have enough luck hunting to make up for our shopping inadequacy.
Blog of the Dead (Book 3): Lost Page 9
