Chapter One
On this particular day all I could see was a sad forty-one-year-old man who had spent his life drinking, snorting cocaine and bedding women. But my wild days had finally caught up with me.
Naked, with way too much hair on my body for a normal man, I gaped at the face looking back in the mirror. I didn’t like what I saw. I was looking old; my short sideburns were grey, my eyes looked tired, and my belly had grown outwards over the months I had neglected the gym. I was about a stone overweight—14lbs—I guessed, and promised myself that the following Monday I was going to return to the gym after having a lengthy lay-off.
I sighed hard and blew out my cheeks in a self-pitying kind of way. It had been five weeks since I had been laid off from the JCB plant on Power Station Road, and I was finding it hard to find any other kind of work in this poky town of mine.
I lived in a town called Tentworth. I had no family; my mother was dead; my dad had died before I was born, and my sister was married and lived in Canada. My friends had all settled down before the age of thirty-five and my only contact with them was via Facebook, a once-a-year meet-up where we went out and got drunk on the 27th December every year, and the only other time I would see them was if we accidentally bumped into each other in the supermarket.
I had no kids, and my longest relationship with a woman, Deborah Horan, was over three years ago. She had finally got sick of my partying ways. I think it’s fair to say I was a bit of a pathetic figure.
Chapter Two
I had come back from the supermarket and managed to get my weekly shopping with no hullabaloo. Most normal people were at work. It’s very rare you get a busy supermarket on a Wednesday afternoon. It had been the first time I had left the house in days, and I knew that this unemployed malarkey was making me lazy.
Once I had put the shopping away, I went upstairs and had a shave—my first in four days. I also brushed my teeth. It was a strange time of the day to be doing this, but my breath was like a neglected vagina. I then made myself a cup of tea, grabbed a chunky Kit Kat from the fridge, and plonked my lazy body on the settee and switched on the TV.
I was greeted by the presenter of SKY news. He was a fat Irishman that I would love to hit with a shovel. I didn’t know what it was about him that got on my nerves, but he just did. Maybe it was jealousy. I was an out-of-work slob, staring at a TV, in a house that I could no longer afford, gaping at an overweight idiot on TV, talking crap and getting paid a few million a year for doing so.
It didn’t seem fair.
Already tired of listening to his voice, I turned the TV down, picked up my iPhone and messed about on Facebook. It was the usual bullshit.
There were a few women on my page who I used to go to school with, and there were status remarks like: What a shit day. I hate my life and I think I’m going to scream.
Attention seeking saddos.
I was really tempted to type: Well, fucking just kill yourself if life is that bad. But I refrained from doing so; I blocked them instead.
Then there were the annoying selfies. Women in their forties taking photos from inside the toilet of a nightclub. What the fuck is that all about? One of the women I was ‘friends’ with had done a selfie, she pouted like she was trying to impersonate a duck, and her status read, above the hideous photo: Having a great time.
Really, love? Then why are you taking photos of yourself in the crapper?
I continued to scroll down to see if I had missed anything over the last few hours and I suddenly saw a thread with two of my old mates on, and a girl called Elaine who I had never heard of.
The original comment was by Jamie Chatsworth and his status read: This is starting to get out of hand now. Below, were comments that were made, responding to his status.
Elaine Wales
Wots up J???
Jamie Chatsworth
This government. With all the cuts, people are starting to turn on one another.
Elaine Wales
I know. There was a riot in Birmingham last night. Some people were stabbed, some were even bit.
Jamie Chatsworth
I know with the cuts some people are struggling to eat, but I think biting people is taking it a bit too far. ;-)
Elaine Wales
Lol
Ian Ferguson
Have you seen what’s been happening in Hexham?
Jamie Chatsworth
Just seen it on the news. Prob some mental patients escaped up north.
Ian Ferguson
I heard they got bit in a pub, then a mob attacked the police when they turned up.
Jamie Chatsworth
Wot is goin on? There was also a train full of people attacked in Motherwell.
You going to the game tomoz?
Ian Ferguson
Yes. Gotta go to clinic first.
Jamie Chatsworth
Wots up, bruv? Got herpes? Lol
Ian Ferguson
Lmfao. No, dick brain. Some drunken twat tried to mug me about ten minutes ago in town. Scratched all my face. Think I’ve got some kind of infection. Don’t wanna be passing it onto the kids.
Jamie Chatsworth
What a nutter.
Ian Ferguson
Tell me about it.
Jamie Chatsworth
U okay now tho?
Ian Ferguson
The Missus says I’ve gone a bit white. Time get my head down in a bit. Feel knackered.
Jamie Chatsworth
U fined police?
Ian Ferguson
Fined. Lol
Jamie Chatsworth
Predictive text, lol. Ok smart arse. u PHONED police?
Ian Ferguson
No point. Didn’t steal anything and the guy was obviously drunk and homeless.
Jamie Chatsworth
What do you think the score will be tomorrow?
Jamie Chatsworth
Hello. Earth to Ian.
Jamie Chatsworth
Hello.
Jamie Chatsworth
Lol. I’ll inbox you later, bud.
*
I had just recently been watching the TV series, Dexter. I only watched the first two episodes and was instantly hooked.
Fuck it, I thought. This was how I was going to spend the rest of my week: doors locked, curtains drawn, plenty of Dexter, and plenty of booze.
I had decided that Sunday was going to be my dry-out day: Plenty of water, lemons, and healthy food. I had no work, no girlfriend, and worrying about the mortgage wasn’t going to help pay for it, so I decided to have a lazy week.
I checked the cabinet. Perfect. Four bottles of red wine, a bottle of whisky and a bottle of brandy sat in the cupboard. I then went to the toilet and it felt like the whole world had fallen out of my arse. I needed that.
Chapter Three
It was now Saturday 9th June, and I had managed to stick to my plan of doing nothing and had so far got to series six of Dexter and had consumed all the wine, only the whisky and brandy was left.
I had been on Facebook and noticed the threads were going on about crazy stuff, including violent videos being posted, which I never bothered to watch.
I turned on the news.
With the violence over the last week snowballing, and slowly intensifying, I listened to a couple of speakers, which included a programme hosted by Ben Foster.
I only normally watched this part of the news because of the voluptuous weather girl, but found myself becoming immersed in what was being said.
Then once a preacher turned up and began ranting, I began to lose interest and turned the TV off.
Chapter Four
The next day was Sunday.
It was supposed to be a simple matter of walking to the shops, buying bacon and a litre of juice with plenty of sugar—none of that diet rubbish that laces the drink with aspartame and acusulfame k.
As I left my front door, I walked across my drive that was missing a car. Being out of work I couldn’t afford to run one, and wa
sn’t really something I missed terribly anyway. I headed on the slight incline hill towards my local shops. There were four shops in all at the top of the hill.
From left to right there was a Co-op. It was a place where I hardly purchased from because it was basically a rip-off. Next to it was a newsagents that sold the usual crap like newspapers, cigarettes, etc,. This was the shop that I used to purchase my bus pass when I used to work.
A monthly pass would cost me £38 and a weekly bus pass would cost £12.50. The shop ended up stopping monthly passes and only did weekly passes, which meant it would cost me £50 a month to keep on purchasing passes from the local shop, or I could get my pass at the town centre near my work at the subway instead. I decided to do that, and was disgusted with the shopkeeper, as I thought the robbing bastards were doing weekly passes only so they could pocket more money for themselves.
Next to the newsagents was a local butcher. They say that in times of the supermarket killing smaller businesses, people should support their local shop, but that is easier said than done when your local shop is extortionate, compared to the Tesco that’s just down the road.
Next to the butchers was a chemist. Every morning you’d see all kinds of waifs and strays hanging about the chemist, waiting for it to open, after been given their prescription from the clinic that was situated just over the road.
I eventually made it to the Co-op, grudgingly, to purchase a litre of Irn-Bru and some over-expensive bacon, only to find that it was closed. This was unusual, but instead of moaning I staggered out of the area, ready for the short walk home.
Up ahead, I saw one individual who seemed to be in a worse state than me. He stood glaring at me from twenty yards away. I couldn’t see much, but what I could see was that his clothes were all tattered, his mouth and chin were covered in blood, and his look was vacant.
I was aware that it was Sunday, so I incorrectly assumed at the time that this individual had had a really good time on the Saturday night and was now suffering for it.
My assumptions couldn’t have been further from the truth.
I walked past the individual, who was ten yards to my left, with hesitant feet. I did this because he was drunk and a drunken man could be unpredictable, like most people when intoxicated.
As soon as I passed him I heard a disturbing, breathy moan. I turned around to see him staggering towards me. As soon as he got nearer, my stomach began to do somersaults.
His clothes were covered in dirt and blood; his face was pale and in a worse state than I had initially thought as his milky, dead eyes glared at me. And the smell... Oh, my god. It was as bad as anything I’ve ever smelt.
I turned around to speak to the thing, but it stumbled forward and raised its arms and its hands grabbed my shoulders. I knew immediately I was being attacked, so I pushed the man as hard as I could and saw him quite easily tumble to the ground.
Before I had a chance to run away, I heard a male voice scream from a bedroom window to the right of me, “Run, you daft prick! Have you got a death wish or something?”
I was confused by the man’s verbal assault, and then I heard a voice of a woman from behind him. “For Christ’s sake, Jim! Close the window. He’s not our problem.”
Jim did as he was told and once he did shut the window, I could see that Jim and his gobby wife had every window with the curtains shut. I could also see through the frosted glass of their front door and saw that furniture of some kind was against it.
What was going on?
I then looked at the house next door and saw that the set-up was the same: curtains closed, and some kind of barricade against the front door. It looked like a wardrobe. I looked at the next house and the house after that. Again, it was the same.
I then looked back at the thing that struggled to its feet and I decided to walk away, before it had chance to follow me. My heart was going ten to the dozen, and I needed to get home and have a lie down.
At the time, I blamed my over-indulgence on alcohol for this surreal morning, but it was something more serious than that. And as I strolled back to my house, I looked at the windows of the street to see that most houses had their curtains closed. Maybe it was earlier than I thought. But then I began to think about the people’s front doors. Why would someone block off their front door?
My deliberation was interrupted when I heard another voice from over the road. It was an old man I recognised called Toby Jenkins. He called out to me, and shouted, “Get inside. Haven’t you seen the news?”
The truth was that I hadn’t watched terrestrial TV for a while and if London had been nuked, I still wouldn’t have had a clue about it.
I quickened my pace as I saw the thing getting to its feet. I remembered thinking at the time: This thing doesn’t look human. The way it looked; the way it walked, and the smell was bizarre. I was beginning to think that this person wasn’t drunk because it was not alcohol fumes I could smell off of him, it was... I don’t know. Death? It smelt like raw sewage.
My speedy walk suddenly turned into a run and I was home within no time. I shut the door behind me and locked it with my key. I walked through my reception area and into my new living room where my plasma TV was attached to the wall. In the new living room there was a patio door that, when opened, led into my back garden. At the side off the house was an alleyway that led straight through to the front of my house to the drive. And at the back end of the house was a gate, which was in line with the patio door and originally put there to stop people wandering in and out during the night.
I turned the TV on and walked through the back room to peer out from the blinds. I saw that the street was clear, and my admirer had disappeared to go somewhere else.
Once I heard the sound of voices coming from the living room, it indicated to me that the TV was on a decent volume and I walked back into the room and sat down.
It was on channel 82, SKY News, and I sat down for half an hour to be greeted by pasty-face newsreaders, macabre mobile phone footage of people being attacked, and riots from the previous night from all corners of the UK.
I’m not going to go in explicit detail about what I saw and heard on the TV, because it was pretty much the same as what you would expect in any apocalyptic book, film or TV programme.
The reporters were using words like, ghouls, the dead, or creatures, to describe these things that had been infected, but we all knew what they were, right? We’ve seen the films, so why didn’t they just come out and say it?
Maybe if they used the proper term they would have to bite their bottom lip for fear of laughing or would cringe as the word left their lips. Was it too much of a cliché?
Whatever people disguised it as, these things that were roaming around the UK were ... zombies. There, I have said it. That wasn’t too hard, was it?
I can understand why some people think the term ‘zombies’ as ridiculously funny. When people say the Z word I sometimes think of some of the dodgy films of the past that I’ve watched growing up. Films like, Redneck Zombies, Zombie Creeping Flesh, or Corpses Are Forever.
When you see these funny films, the word zombie becomes less scary. Even recent movies have put new twists on the genre and have made the creatures quicker, aggressive and more aware.
But these things on the TV were not quick, and there was nothing funny about what I was seeing. The reason for that was that this was real.
This was very fucking real.
This was frightening shit what I saw, and I had a five-minute breakdown while these horrific scenes were being soaked up by my eyes.
Chapter Five
After thirty minutes of gazing at a screen that had made my body go into shock, I put the TV onto mute and did what I was told by the pasty-faced anchorman, Stephen Dixon.
I went to my ground floor bathroom, filled my bath and sink. Then I went into the kitchen and filled the other sink and then checked my fridge, my freezer, and what I had in my cupboard. Thankfully, I had a lot of tins: beans, soup and tuna chunks amo
ngst other things. I also still had boxes of Frosties, Rice Krispies and Cheerios. I only had a litre of milk left, but I wanted to save the milk for tea and coffee, as I could eat cereal dry.
I’m not going to reel off what I had in my fridge, freezer and cupboard, but I thought at the time that I should be okay for a few weeks. I had done a big shopping on the Wednesday, and had hardly touched it as I was mainly drinking booze and ordering takeaways.
I picked my phone off of the iPhone station that sat on a cupboard underneath the plasma TV. It was fully charged and the Facebook statuses were going mental.
There were too many to mention but three examples that I can reel off were the following.
First status: Keep safe everyone! Lock your doors until this craziness blows over. Stay positive, people. This was from a girl called Kerry Pritchard, a girl I used to go to school with and had not seen in over twenty years.
Second status: OMFG wots happening? Just seen a guy attack an old lady in the middle of my street. Police engaged and now watching news. WTF! This status was from a girl that I used to work with and never understood why she friend-requested me months ago anyway, as I hated her guts.
Third status: Oh, my Lord. Please keep the people of the UK safe. Watching the news from my home. My family and I are in tears. It was from a girl called Gemma Marsden. She was from San Antonio and I knew her from years ago when she came over to the UK as a student, as I had had a three month fling with her.
I looked at her status again and wished I was in San Antonio with her.
I watched the TV again and turned up the volume. It seemed a bit surreal and unbelievable that something like this could happen. I had been watching movies like this, but for it to happen for real seemed laughable. Then again, there are movies about nuclear attacks, comets hitting Earth—things that could realistically happen in our lifetime. So why not this?
Everything they were telling us was similar to what I had seen in the movies. I watched reporter, Gail Turner, a woman I’ve always had a crush on, go on the air and herself and her crew were filming from Oxford Street, in London, where the army had set up a barricade.
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