by RR Haywood
She has to get past. The day is already too late to go back. She’d reach the church before night but that would just mean starting again. Suddenly the idea of the safe corpse free church doesn’t seem so bad. Well, not exactly corpse free given the graveyard outside but not corpses like this stinky one that must be here.
She focusses back to the now. Shaking her head to keep her mind clear. She’s not going back to the church. Besides, she just called God a dick so he probably wouldn’t let her back in.
She shuffles out, peering forward then going up on tiptoes while pulling a myriad of faces that reflect her inner turmoil.
‘Sod it,’ she hisses almost silently and takes a big brave step. Nothing happens. Hordes of zombies don’t come charging. She takes another step, forehead crumpling in worry. Still no swathes of beasts. No explosions. No gunshots. No werewolves or vampires either. Hang on, vampires don’t like daylight. Or is that werewolves?
Focus! She huffs at her own flitting mind and takes another step, half turning as though ready to flee back to the safety of the hedge. Completely unaware that she still holds the baseball cap full of blackberries in her hand.
She stops at the sight of the body lying across the doorway and the sadness of the world settles on her shoulders. Her hand lowers, spilling the fruit from the cap but she doesn’t notice. Instead she sighs heavy and long at the sight of the old lady lying dead in a pool of congealed blood. Her back bitten so deep the spinal column can be seen from here. Maggots writhe in the wounds. Fat and white. Flies hover to rise and fall over the corpse that must have been rotting away for several days.
Heather doesn’t move but stares without blinking. This must be her house. She deduces the woman opened the door then tried running back in as the things got her. It must have been horrific too. She imagines the life of the woman. The television signal going. The phones not working. The power ending after a few days. Confusion, fear and isolation then to be killed so brutally.
She has to force herself to keep moving. A literal summoning of energy to get her legs working again. The positive vibe of freedom now sapped and this is what the world is now. It’s gritty and brutal. Violent and balanced on a knife edge. One mistake and you’re done. Open the door and you’re dead. Simple. Don’t open the door. Keep it closed.
She goes on and doesn’t look back. There’s no point. She does consider going back to scavenge for food or even have a wash but the thought of using the woman’s house doesn’t seem right. Instead she keeps her head up this time and watches everything. The far distance, the near distance, the sides and the rear. She clocks the gates and paths leading away, noting them for escape routes. She notices farms setback off unmade roads and rushes to get clear of being seen. She doesn’t want to be seen. Hiding is her thing. Get what you need and hide.
Five
The horde pass a small cluster of bodies broken on the street. Several with injuries similar to those carried by the man. Throats bitten through. Necks shredded to lumps of useless flesh. Others have been run over and still hold the tyre marks over faces and midsections. Yet more have broken necks with heads lying at weird angles to bodies.
Flashes of something in his mind come forward again and again but the suppression is quicker than the ability to seize and retain them and on he walks. Unseeing and uncaring but still absorbing the sights around him.
More bodies are found. All of them are hosts that had been turned then killed. His arms twitch with a convulsion of electricity sent into his limbs that is suppressed. He doesn’t register that his own healing throat is as similarly damaged as those on the corpses he passes, punctured from long canine teeth.
A breadcrumb trail of action that the horde follows. Feet treading one after the other. Low moans and groans escape the horde. Heavy breathing from the obese man who wheezes to absorb enough oxygen to keep his mammoth frame moving. The half-naked shit covered woman growing more pungent by the hour from the heat that grows to intensify with staggering humidity.
On a quiet residential street the horde stop as one and snap their heads to the right almost as though in response to an eyes right order during a military march. Something there. A noise. A muffled thump then a muffled scream that shuts off as quickly as it starts. As one they move from static to charging towards the front door as the urge they all feel ramps harder through their minds. Seek. Bite. Feast.
The low groans become growling hisses and lips pull back to show teeth that ready for the bite. Jaws snap open and closed. Hands claw into talons and saliva is produced in readiness.
The man goes with them. He is unable to do anything other than abide the urge within. His own hands stiffen and become fixed weapons that will gouge and rake to tear flesh. His body tries to growl but the sound that comes is low and lost due to the injuries inflicted on his voice box. He feels only the need to be within that place closer to the noises so he can bite and rake and make more hosts.
The horde impact on the door. Not one of them tries the handle. Fine motor skills are gone. Cognitive reason is lost. They are hive mind within their small group. They drive forward, slamming into the wooden front door that rattles and bangs in the frame. A whimper is heard. The pitiful sound of a child in fear and that single noise increases the frenzied bloodlust of the horde. They drive without coherent motion but with sheer furious abandon of physical form against solid object. The combined weight of many that is focussed to a single point. More press in behind and the bulk of the obese man sends him through to the front where he can slam his immense weight into the door.
It creaks and groans. If it was modern UPVC it could flex and absorb some of the energy but the wood is solid and designed to remain intact. Instead the frame starts to give. The thinner fixed sections of wood being pushed out from the bricks they’re attached to. They drive harder. Venomously driven to get inside. They spill out towards the window of the front room, smelling the living inside. Not a second of hesitation before they start smashing their heads into the glass that fractures with spider web cracks spreading out.
The screams from inside come louder and more terrified. A male voice urgently hushing. A woman crying with wretched sobs. The horde become frenetic, flinging themselves at the door and windows. A head cracks the outer pane of the double glazed window with such force it would render a normal person unconscious. That head just keeps striking. Going back and forth until the flesh on the forehead starts to tear away, exposing the skull. Still it goes on, head-butting over and again to shatter the outer pane away. Others join in. Heads ramming. Arms flailing. Bodies flinging. The man is there amongst them. Driven by the same desire as the others. Wild with hunger.
The pressure builds and as strong as the door and frame are, they cannot withstand the combined weight of so many people throwing themselves into it. The frame gives. Simply coming away from the wall inside the house. The door falls in. The obese man falls with it. Landing in a shower of dust and debris. House bricks fall from the walls. Wood splinters and the frame gets dragged inwards by the rush of undead powering through howling like the animals they are. Screeching with design to be heard and so to induce a greater amount of fear that can be scented and found.
They pour into the house. Into the kitchen, the living room, the dining room and the even the downstairs toilet. The man mounts the steps on strong legs that carry him swiftly up to the landing with such maniacal craving he goes straight through the closed bathroom door at the top of the stairs. His broad shoulders, meaty arms and solid torso bursting through the internal door in a shower of splinters. More follow the man up and cram in behind him while others veer off into the other closed doors.
The survivors are found in the last bedroom. The father rushes out with a valiant last ditch effort to defend his family, screaming in fear and rage while swinging a cricket bat. He knocks one down and makes the mistake of trying to hit that same one again while his wife shields their children behind him. The father is ripped from his feet by the forward motion of the attack. As h
e goes down the top of his head is bitten with a wet tearing sound from a chunk of his scalp being torn away by saliva coated teeth that pass the virus into his bloodstream. While he screams in pain and fear the undead dive past him into his wife who is yanked away from her children. She doesn’t stand a chance. The attack is overwhelming in pure savage violence. A mouth finds her cheek, biting through to rip the skin away. She screams louder, blood spraying out that gets pulled down into her throat. Another one bites her shoulder, another on her stomach and more on her legs and arms. Fingers rake and gouge. Blood flies into the air to coat the faces of her children who shy away in abject shock. The children are taken the same. Bites given that open flesh. Fingers raking that tear skin. The four scream in pain and the beasts would keep going but the signal is passed. The job is done. Some bite on, gnashing and clawing until they too are pulled back by the unseen force within.
The man goes first. His stomach suddenly burning with such intense pain it makes him forget anything else exists. His wife does the same seconds behind him. Then their two children. All four curled up in balls on the ground, writhing from the searing agony spreading out from their guts to every inch of their bodies. A pain none of them thought possible.
Two minutes from bite to death. Two minutes of pure unbridled agony. The man convulses. Biting the tip of his tongue off as he gives a final scream then slumps inert and dead. The mother of the children falls quiet a second after him. Then the children. The house grows instantly quiet with just the ragged breathing of the undead staring intently at the corpses.
Their hearts are stopped then re-started. Cells become tainted and turned as the infection replicates over and again. Everything is checked and turned into the true state of being. The scalp wound on the fathers head that was bleeding heavily at the point of death now slows as the blood thickens to congeal and clot. A finger on the woman’s hand was bitten clean off during the frantic attack. The pain of that injury ends and that too starts to clot to prevent further blood loss. Lungs start working again. Breathing in and out. Limbs go into spasm with pulses of electricity sent into them as the infection gains the brain and starts working to take over the basic motor function. The bodies lock out, writhe then go still. Legs kick, arms lift quickly then drop.
In order of dying they open their eyes. Father, mother and two formerly beloved children. Four pairs of red bloodshot eyes. Four hosts that are no longer hungry or scared. A family that no longer hold allegiance to anything other than the urge building inside. They are hosts now and part of this horde. They sit up and rise to stand in the room as the horde starts to move back down the stairs.
The man was trapped in the bathroom. Too many other attackers prevented him from getting to the feast but the chemical dump was the same for all of them with the urge to bite driven by releases of testosterone and adrenalin. The second the objective was achieved so those hormones were ceased and a dump of calming chemicals was produced by glands. Instantly easing the demented thirst for flesh.
He felt it. Every host in the horde felt it. It was not to be denied or refused such is the purpose of a hive mind collective but something else happened too. As the action ramped so the flashes of memory came back faster. They were suppressed just as quickly but more of them came. Images that mean nothing swept through his mind. Feelings that died the instant they were formed. A minivan running over bodies and that sense of Déjà vu coming back only to be deadened and pushed away.
He files down with the others. His strong legs carrying him with ease down and out into the hot air of the street. His broad shoulders rubbing those around him and behind him traipse four fresh hosts that now look ahead and walk on without recognition of each other or knowledge of the emotions they had but seconds ago.
Six
Walking is therapy. Walking down a country lane on a gorgeously hot summer day is therapeutic. The placing of the feet, left, right, left and right. The steady tread that sways the body ever so slightly side to side. Looking left and right then ahead. Doing it again and again. Stepping, swaying slightly, looking left and right. It’s soothing in a rhythmic action that should settle the turmoil and inner angst from seeing the body of the old lady in the threshold of the door.
It doesn’t do any of those things. She gets irritated instead. More irritated by the second. She’s too hot. It must be over thirty degrees. Her top is soaked through and clinging to her body. Her jeans are too thick, too tight, too irritating. Her boots are heavy. Her feet are melting. Sweat runs down her face and her jaw feels as irritated as she does at constantly being wiped by the back of her arm.
Her lower back started hurting a little while ago and soon radiated out to a dull persistent nag. A headache is coming too. Her boobs feel swollen and tender. Just wearing a bra is bloody annoying. Her stomach, despite the lack of food, feels bloated and hard to the touch. She could cry and shout and scream and rage all at the same time. She wants chocolate and a duvet but they can both piss off and leave her alone. She wants nothing and everything without knowing what she wants. A black mood that settles and twists her emotions. She’s hungry too. Very hungry. Really very hungry. Pissed off, in pain, sweaty with sore boobs, bloated, cramping and hungry.
Every step brings the mood lower. Every step makes her seethe with the injustice of everything that has ever been done wrong. She wants to find whoever made this happen and snap their bloody necks for causing her this discomfort. Coming on and being forced to walk on a scorching hot day is just shit. Completely shit. It’s not on. Just really not on. She’ll find them and punch them in the nose then in the bollocks. She’ll stab them with forks. In the eyes. Yeah, stabbed in the eyes by sharp forks then she’ll pop those eyes out from the sockets and tread on them so they burst all gooey and horrible. Then she’ll put those eyes back in so they can see her punching them in the nose again. Then she’ll cry and eat chocolate.
Her woes increase with the greater frequency of houses dotted along the country lane giving an indication of nearing the town. Cottages mostly, detached and lovely and no doubt owned by toffee nosed rich bastards that killed foxes for pleasure. Bastards. The onset of the mood eases back the fear and hesitancy of hanging off to peer and be uber sure before rushing past. Instead she watches, listens and then runs while cursing foully at being forced to run.
Some of the cottage doors have been bust open. Windows smashed with signs of forced entry. Blood stains on a gate and up a path. A congealed mess of something gloopy and old outside one of them. None of them look intact or safe and the fact most have been entered means this immediate area isn’t safe either.
She presses on, venturing gradually from rural to town. The fields become smaller and more like pasture land for grazing horses. Stables here and there. Sheep and cows chewing content and silent.
The hedges are soon replaced with wire fences then wooden panels and finally by walls marking the boundary of edge-of-town houses. She spots roof tops, church spires, mobile phone masts and the tops of factories now in the near distance. A big town by the looks of it but if these houses have been looted or smashed in then the shops are probably all looted too. Probably by the greedy toffee nosed fox murdering wankers. Bastards.
Now is the time to switch on and despite the growing discomfort of pain, swelling, bloating, cramps, sweats, foul mood, hunger and being royally pissed off she forces herself to focus and look properly. This only happened twelve days ago. It seems longer because hiding with sod all to do every day makes the time stretch out but it’s still new enough to be wholly and inherently dangerous.
The lane ends at a junction to a wide main road with an instant transition from rural to urban. In both directions she can see rows of houses, shops further down, cars parked up or left abandoned. Silent with a foreboding air that hangs heavy and hot.
She holds still, easing the bag off her shoulders again and dropping to a squat that sends a fresh wave of cramps through her gut. She winces, growls and waits hoping it will pass but it doesn’t. Instead she mov
es faster, gripping the brown wooden stock of the sawn-off shotgun that she slides out and lays down on the road. Four cartridges are taken from the side pocket and put next to the shotgun. She doesn’t know what they are, or even if they’re any good but it was all she could find when she broke into the farm while running to find somewhere to hide. She nabbed a hacksaw at the same time and later cut the barrels down so the shotgun would fit it in her bag then taught herself how to open and close it. She opens it now and slides two of the cartridges into the holes, side by side. Two triggers so that must be one for each barrel. She hates it. The weight of it and the need to carry the thing but having it is far safer than being unarmed.
She pockets the other two shells, closes the shotgun, shoulders the bag and sets off over the road, aiming for the junction of another smaller street further down. She gets halfway across when she hears the engine. Diesel and throaty, like a van. The kind she used to hear every day when she lived in her town. Vans that made deliveries to shops and homes. She runs faster, opening her legs to sprint as she gains directional hearing to the engine coming from the right side.
She factors that hearing an engine means someone is driving and that means another survivor. Unless the zombies have started driving vans in the few days she’s been hiding in the church. She gets across and vaults a low wall then runs further into the garden to drop behind a hedge. Breathing hard from the explosion of energy required to sprint. Sweat covers her face but the stifling heat is for once ignored as a greater worry comes to the fore as the engine gets closer. She waits, breathing steadily and hoping the vehicle will keep going but today is the day of sod’s law and, in keeping with the shittiness of things so far, the van starts to slow. A deceleration that she detects from the noise alone.
