Day Zed - Box Set: Volumes I and II

by Charles Smith

  Each of the four had chosen to leave their backpacks behind on the first carriage, as manoeuvrability with them on their backs would have been impossible in such cramped conditions. The gap they traversed was so thin that with their backs pressed against the wall, their faces were nearly touching the grimy exterior of the train carriage. When he reached the end of the train, Morgan stopped to listen. Only after Morgan stood there listening for some time, for any movement coming from directly in front of them, did he dare shuffle free from the train.

  The first part of their plan was dangerous, they had to draw the undead out into the open, where they could see them; to do that they would need to use light. On the count of Morgan’s whispered three, each of them ignited a flare, and threw them forward. With the combination of light from the thrown sticks, and the sound the sticks made as they tumbled across the surface alerting the zombies to movement, Morgan quickly worked out exactly what they were up against. All in all there appeared to be fifteen of the deadly cadavers, shuffling between the tracks of the station; there was maybe more of them still lurking in the shadows, unaffected by the flares. The nearest of the flares had fallen on the left hand side of the platform, and illuminated two of the undead. “Gerard those two are ours.” Kathy told him as she moved in their direction with her knife drawn. Gerard reluctantly followed her onto the platform with his baseball bat at the ready. Morgan and Jackson moved to the next flare, both carried brand new melee weapons that had procured from one of Monuments traders; Morgan carried a mace with evil looking spikes, whilst Jackson lofted a customised club hammer over his shoulder. The four zombies that were entranced by the second of the flares, were dealt deadly blows from the two soldiers in seconds. Both the mace and the hammer obliterated their skulls with hardly any effort. They moved off towards the rear of the train tracks where the furthest flare now illuminated six of the monsters.

  Kathy and Gerard reached the zombies, without alerting them to their presence. The two of them just stood there staring at the flickering light of the flare, neither had noticed the two people stealthily approaching them; when they finally did it was too late. Before either could moan Kathy drove her knife into the nearest ones ear with all her might, killing it instantly. As its companion turned to investigate the noise Gerard’s bat came hurtling down onto the crown of its head, dropping it to its knees, with its head split in two. Kathy pointed further down the same platform to a group of three that they would have to tackle next.

  Despite their efforts to remain silent, just as Kathy and Gerard had crawled across the distance to their next targets, one of the zombies turned and spotted them; it snarled and hissed, instantly alerting the other two to their presence. Gerard’s bat was already on a downwards arc and connected with the first zombies head, as its head caved in the platform was awash with the sound of the bat splintering, and Gerard was left with a long shard of pointed wood; instinct made him drive the damaged bat forward, it entered the second cadavers eye and exited through the back of its skull, killing it immediately. Kathy easily dispatched the third of the group by driving it backwards with a kick of her foot, and as it tried to stand back up her knife was driven down through the top of its skull. The pair didn’t have time to rest and catch their breath, they headed to the end of the platform to help the other two deal with the last group of zombies.

  The larger group had been stirred by the sound of Gerard’s bat splintering and had all turned to face Morgan and Jackson as they approached, suddenly the area was filled with the sound of the zombies moaning and snarling. The six of them were quickly silenced, but the damage had been done, and noise coming from the concourse above told the survivors they would soon have company. Just as Kathy and Gerard caught up with them the first of the new batch of undead entered onto the briefly empty platform. With the flares still bright enough to illuminate the group, it spotted them straightaway and begun to move towards them. It was soon joined by others, and this group was far larger than the last. As the flares began to flicker their last light, Morgan pointed to the other platform, “Move now.” They all quickly climbed up onto the platform and watched as the first of many zombies fell onto the train lines.

  As the last of the light went out, they were pitched into darkness, to turn on their torches now would be suicide. No one could see in front of them, all they could do was remain still, whilst pressed against the wall. Morgan was surprised that the zombies continued forward, even though they couldn’t see their prey, but when they reached the platforms edge and couldn’t move any further, their teeth began to frantically snap open and shut. “Can they smell us?” Morgan whispered softly, but no one answered they were too scared to. Gerard was petrified, he couldn’t understand why the soldiers hadn’t decided what to do. He knew escaping to the train was out of the question, they just couldn’t put the others at risk, by leading this many back to the carriage. “What do we do now?” The engineer whispered to the others. “I say we fight.” Jackson replied. “Don’t do anything yet.” Morgan interrupted them. “James, what exactly are we waiting for?” Gerard asked, but before he could be answered the sound of a little girls voice echoed along the platform.

  “Hey you bad people. Come and get me, leave my Daddy and my friends alone.” Shanice shouted from the other end of the platform and then flicked the halogen torch on. The beacon of light and the sound of prey whipped the zombies up into a carnivorous frenzy. The halogen beam illuminated every one of them; there must have been at least thirty of them. Morgan still held his hand over Gerard’s mouth to stop him from shouting back along the platform. Still in shock from the fact that Shanice had left the train carriage on her own, and then been brave enough to lure the zombies to her, had the four of them routed to the spot in surprise. When seven flares were all lit at the same time and fired into the middle of the train tracks, it started to make more sense; all of the group had come to save them. To their left on the other platform, Sam was busy cable tying the gate to the platforms closed, no more cadavers could enter now. Shanice was joined by Letitia, who switched the halogen lamp off. The zombies walked into the centre, attracted to Shanice’s voice, but not from the end of the platform, it was now on the train line, in between the flares and the undead. “Can’t get me, can’t get me. Stupid bad people.” Shanice giggled, and then reality clicked into check for Morgan; the little girl’s voice was coming from a walkie-talkie.

  Shanice moved forward, then took two grenades from her bag and tossed them underarm towards the frenzied group of zombies. “Everybody down.” She yelled at the top of her voice, just before the grenades exploded. The roar from the exploding grenades was deafening, and a wave of heat that coursed through the platform passed over all of the group, drying their throats. No one spoke as their ears were all still ringing, and it wasn’t until they were deep in the next tunnel that led to Westminster that Kathy asked Shanice the question that everyone was secretly wondering, “Shanice honey, where did you get those grenades from?” The little girl just laughed hysterically, “From my backpack of course. Those silly men didn’t search mine back at the station. As if all I would be carrying, would be a doll.” She finally replied after regaining her composure.

  Paris, France, 24th July, 17:24 GMT

  Even after, over two weeks the park was still full. With the park being situated out in the middle of the French countryside there was simply nothing else to draw the thousands of undead away from the site. News of the outbreak hadn’t surfaced until mid-morning on that fateful first day, leaving many people to make the journey from their homes, only to be stuck here, when disaster struck. The park had been busy by the time the devastating news broke. Most week days the park would receive around thirty thousand visitors and of a weekend nearly double that amount. How many exactly had been in the park when all hell broke loose, was any ones guess.

  All it took for disaster to strike was just two infected adults to enter the park that fateful day. The pair had been bitten by what they thought was a deranged man, as
they left their home to celebrate their first anniversary on the parks rides. It only took them an hour to make the drive to the theme park, yet they were so fatigued when they parked the car up that they weren’t able to leave it. Both opened their doors to let some valuable air into their vehicle, and that is how they were found; dead in their seats. Although the police and ambulance services were alerted, they never arrived to take the bodies away; which left them to rise up from their car and infect many of the gawping visitors, who had stopped to see what all the commotion around their car had meant.

  The rate at which the infection spread throughout the park was frightening. The two infected soon became eight, then eight turned into seventy six, they then infected a further four hundred and twenty seven. As more became infected the rate the infection actually spread increased. With so many people, all in one place the theme park quickly became the perfect breeding ground for Day Zed. At the end of the day the park had been completely overrun by the zombies; there were small pockets of survivors dotted throughout the complex, many remained in their hiding places, waiting to be rescued. The need for food and water had forced many of them out over the next couple of days; they had decided to run the gauntlet, a slow death from starvation or thirst, wasn’t something they wanted to consider, so they had taken their chances.

  Franck Dubois had hated his job, serving fast food from one of the many stalls dotted around the park. His miniscule hourly wage paled in comparison to the money guests spent on the food they consumed. All it took, was for him to sell one paltry park burger meal, at the over the top price of eight Euro, and his employers had made his wage back. When Franck had taken his first of many, usual smoke breaks that morning he had sat there watching footage on a social media site. There were videos shot from around the country that had gone viral, and watched all over the world. Each video was practically the same, people would stagger towards others and attack them with their teeth. He had reluctantly returned to his post to see one happen in real time, as the driver of the car tore through the crowd.

  The initial bedlam that followed, galvanised the usually lethargic fast food assistant into action. As the parks guests began to stampede, in their search of escape, Franck instinctively triggered the electronic shutters on the front of his stall. He didn’t want anyone biting him, after all he didn’t get paid enough for that. He didn’t even care that his colleague had been outside at the time, cleaning tables and chairs down. Through the small holes in the shutters he watched the chaos unfold directly outside. Two individuals had staggered into the food court area, and then begun systematically attacking anyone within their range. Franck initially wondered why the two attackers seemed to be wrestling with people, until he saw the man bite his favourite Princess mascot.

  For the past year he had idolised the woman; a woman with long blonde hair, she was so pretty, in fact too pretty for him to sum up the nerve to ask her out, normally. He had made the mistake of visiting the park on one of his days off when he was drunk, alcohol had affected his confidence and he approached her, he can still remember the look of disgust spread across her face when he had asked her for a date. Since that fateful day he had looked at her in a different light, she was still his favourite based on her looks, but her character? Well he didn’t think much of that. She had been in her own little world when that thing had latched onto her, unaware of the danger, until it was too late, not knowing her life was at risk, until it had bitten down into her soft, pastel white neck.

  Franck now found it ironic that when he looked at his Princess, she repulsed him. Every day since her death she had loitered outside of his stall with the others. Her once milky, pure skin was gone forever and it had been replaced with a decaying, jaundice coloured hue. Black veins protruded from all over her skin; the same colour black as that of her gums and wounded neck. Her hair was no longer perfect and blonde, it was now matted with dried blood and dirt, but it was the eyes that repulsed him more than anything else. The once alluring hazel green colour they had been was long gone, and its place a colour that seemed so foreign; dead, solid black.

  He had fared better than most, in terms of supplies being ready to hand. The electric had failed some time ago, and a few days after that the water supply ran out, but he still had plenty of fizzy drinks and defrosted French fries. When the electric had gone off, Franck had used every available container in the store to hold as many as the chips as was possible. Each container once full to the brim with defrosting chips was then topped up with tap water to prevent them from going black. The fact he couldn’t cook the chips, didn’t deter Franck, he ate handfuls of them raw, using the sachets of various sauces to mask the starchy taste of the raw potato. The smell from rotting burgers and bread rolls had forced him up onto the stores roof a few days ago. Since then he had spent too many hours playing a sick, inhumane game; using the undead as targets, he would hurl the rotting food at them, awarding himself extra points when he hit one in the head. Today was no different, he had spent the last hour hurling mouldy chicken burgers down at the cadavers, who stood there with their eager arms held aloft towards him, hoping he might fall down. The view was exactly the same as the day before; a park full of zombies, all wanting to eat him, Franck looked out across the sea of undead and wondered if there was anyone else alive.

  With desolation his main enemy, he found that as each day passed he slept more and more, just to escape the boredom. In the past he had been adamant when talking to what little friends he had that he didn’t need other peoples company to survive. He knew now, just how wrong he had been; for years he had distanced himself from most walks of life, yet now he would gladly talk to anyone. Out of sheer boredom he decided to climb the ladder to the roof, and take in the last few hours of sunlight. It had been nearly a fortnight, since had had seen anyone like him.

  If Franck tried to ignore the zombies below him, he could still see how beautiful the parks setting was, and as he scanned across the whole vista, his gaze focussed upon something moving. He rubbed at his eyes in disbelief, just to check that he truly was awake, and not imagining things. Franck stared in amazement across the food courtyard; the colleague he had shut out was on the roof of the Donut shop, and he wasn’t alone. The hot looking manageress of the donut shop was with him, and the pair were engaged in the middle of a sexual act. Franck shook his head at the sight of his acne covered colleague punching well above his weight with the much older woman. “She must be desperate to sleep with that little shit.” Franck spat out to himself.

  He watched in silence for a further ten minutes, whilst the pair obliviously fulfilled their carnal desires; they acted as if they were the last two humans left on earth, as they cavorted around most of the roof in all manner of different positions. “She should be mine.” Frank said to himself, as jealousy got the better of him. “Hey you two. Over here.” He finally shouted across the courtyard. The pair turned, appearing shocked to hear another voice. For a few seconds the manageress scanned all of the food units; seeking out the source of the new voice. When she finally spotted Franck she waved happily, whilst Jack just saluted Franck with his middle finger.

  “I’ll show that little fucker.” The disgruntled burger seller said aloud, as he disappeared down the ladder, back inside the burger bar. He knew where the toolbox was kept, for fixing things, and as soon as he had retrieved it, he went back to examine the ladder. All that kept it fixed in place was two bolts that he would be able to loosen. Franck climbed back up to the roof and once again spoke out aloud, “Get ready you spotty little freak.”

  Franck looked back, over his shoulder at the pair as he stepped up onto the flat roof; he couldn’t believe that they were once again having sex. The manageress was now bent over an air condition unit, whilst Jack was busy penetrating her from behind. The burger seller almost allowed himself to get lost in the vision of the woman’s over abundant breasts that swung back and forth as Jack entered her. “Concentrate Franck, you can fill your boots once you’re over there.” He said to
himself to force the image from his head.

  Dismantling the ladders fixings proved more difficult than he had expected. Hanging upside down whilst he loosened the bolts was difficult enough in itself, gripping the ladder with his other hand as he worked the second bolt loose was strength sapping. After pulling the ladder up through the gap he was gasping for breath, and he lay down to gulp in valuable amounts of air back into his lungs.

  Once Franck had regained his composure, he stood up and then strode over to the stores edge. All of the stores had been built in the same style with them being lined up on the outside edge of the courtyard, to form a c-shape around the eating area. He knew if the ladder was long enough, he should be able to traverse the gap between his store and the ice cream parlour, next door. As each store had exactly the same gap between each neighbouring store, it meant that Franck would be able to travel across all fifteen rooftops, without needing to use the zombie packed ground below. Franck tentatively placed the ladder across the two roof tops, he almost jumped for joy, when he realised it stretched all the way across the gap.

  Now that daylight was starting to fade Franck thought it would be foolish to shimmy across the ladder. It would be much safer to go in the morning, as it would probably take all day to cross the expanse of fifteen stores. He didn’t care how long it took; all he knew, was that he was prepared to spend as long as it took. To wipe the smile of that cretins face.

  He slept peacefully that night, and was amazed at how sound his sleep had been when he woke the next morning. Having something to aim for definitely made him feel more energised. After taking a few mouthfuls of warm cola from a bottle, he turned to face the ladder, but it wasn’t there. Franck ran to the edge, dreading the thought of it falling onto the ground, during the night; it hadn’t. Confused Franck looked back over to the donut shop, he couldn’t believe what he could see; from across the courtyard Jack stood atop Franck’s propped up ladder and was giving the burger seller a double barrel salute, whilst he and the large breasted manageress laughed.