by G G Garcia
“I’m okay for now,” said Paul.
“Where did you meet him?” Lisa huffed. “On one of those pervy websites, I bet.”
Melvin placed his hand on the living room door, ready to go upstairs and put a fresh shirt on. He turned to his wife and said, “Look, this is Paul, and he’s not somebody I met on a website and brought him back for early morning sex.”
“Then what in blue fuck is going on?”
“I don’t really know.” Melvin pointed at the side of the TV, at his wife’s phone, and said, “Check your phone, put the telly on, read and watch the news. I’ll be down in a bit. You might need a brandy for the shock.”
Lisa was left alone with Paul for a long minute and she was suffocated with confusion. She glared at Paul, who tried not to make eye contact with the scary woman, but continued to gaze until his eyes met hers.
“So, where are you from?” she asked him. She seemed a little calmer now, but was still baffled with the situation.
“Rugeley,” Paul said. “There were five of us comin’ back from a nightclub in Stafford, and we were attacked. One of our friends was killed.” Paul used the term ‘friend’ because he couldn’t be bothered to go into the story of how he and his two pals were at a party and took two girls home, and it was one of the females that got attacked.
“What are you talking about?” the confused woman asked. “And who’s we?”
“Um...”
“Why are you here, and where’s the police?”
“Look, it’s hard to explain.” Paul rubbed his face. He hadn’t slept for nearly twenty-four hours, and tiredness was beginning to creep up on him.
Melvin could be heard galloping down the stairs and entered the living room.
He held up his phone and said, “Have you seen it yet?”
“Seen what?” his wife huffed.
“The news.”
“Mel, what are you talking about, you stupid man?”
Paul sat down and continued to rub his face, whereas Melvin went over to the TV and turned it on to the BBC news channel.
“I’ve seen more news and that incident that happened to you and your pals,” Melvin said, waving his phone in his right hand, looking over at Paul. “It’s happening over the country.”
“What incident?” Lisa growled. “Is somebody going to tell me what the twat is going on?”
Paul, Melvin and Lisa watched the TV, and each one felt a nervous energy rush through their bodies and their hearts speeded up.
Lisa gasped, “What the…?”
Melvin shushed her.
They watched the footage and it was stated by the anchorman, and in subheadings that ran across the screen, that the violence had occurred in the areas of Redditch, Solihull, Tamworth, Nuneaton, and one biting incident had occurred in Coventry. The attacks had reportedly begun in the early hours of Sunday morning, and mainly youngsters had been assaulted, like pub goers and clubbers, but incidents of peoples’ houses being attacked by others wasn’t uncommon.
The reports were sketchy and vague, and it seemed that whatever this was, it was in its infancy. The bottom line was that some people were infected, but nobody knew how, and why they were attacking and eating other people.
Melvin shook his head in disbelief, and asked nobody in particular, “Why are the attacks in the West Midlands, and not in places like London, Newcastle, Glasgow or Cardiff?”
Paul hunched his shoulders. He had no idea.
Melvin continued and asked another question, “Is it because this is the area where this virus originated from?”
Nobody responded. They just glared in shock.
“I can’t believe it,” Paul said. “It’s unbelievable. It’s like somethin’ out of an apocalyptic film.”
“I’ll put the kettle on,” Lisa stood up and asked Paul if he wanted tea. He asked for a strong black coffee.
For twenty minutes they gazed at the TV, and neither one said a word. Lisa sobbed a couple of times, but no conversation took place.
According to the reports, even though this disaster was in its infancy, it had been confirmed that the attackers were still human, but had been infected with some kind of virus that must have been triggered in the early hours of Sunday morning, making it only five hours old. There had been no report of attacks the day before, and no attacks had appeared in London, Wales, or any place in Scotland or the north of England.
That was it. That was all they had at that moment.
“This is like that film we saw the other day,” Lisa spoke softly. “You know, that South Korean film about that man and his daughter on the train.”
Melvin sighed and shook his head. He pointed at the TV and said, “That was a zombie film. These people aren’t coming back from the dead. They’re infected with … whatever it is.”
Paul shushed the pair of them as a university lecturer from Bournemouth had been invited on to give his opinion on what could be happening. She seemed to be an expert in diseases. She claimed that she needed more time to study, and was hoping to have a subject captured, but from the video footage she had watched, she guessed that it was a very short lived airborne virus that had only affected some parts of the West Midlands so far. Her guess was that whatever had been picked up by the ‘victims’ appeared to be an aggressive form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which is a form of brain damage that can lead to a rapid decrease of movement and mental function.
The anchorman highlighted that these things had been reported to be running for their victims, so the decrease of movement was rebuffed, although they seemed to have lost their speech, so maybe she was correct with her mental function theory.
“What do we do now?” Lisa spoke with no emotion in her tone.
Her husband shook his head. “No idea.”
Chapter Ten
Tony, Craig and Demi nervously stepped out of the vehicle and looked around the pub’s car park with paranoid eyes. They could see the main door to the establishment, but Tony was unsure whether to try it or not. A part of him wanted to sit in the car for a while before heading back home. He looked at his phone and knew it’d be too early to call his parents, but he tried anyway. Like when Craig and Demi tried their parents, there was no answer. It was, after all, around five in the morning, Sunday. Their phones were probably downstairs and on silent.
“If any of you guys got any data left on your phone,” said Tony, “check the news to see what is going on. I have a bad feeling about this. I’ve run out.”
Tony opened the driver’s door and stepped out, taking the tyre iron with him.
“Where are you going?” Demi sobbed, still wiping the tears from her eyes.
“I’m gonna take a look around,” he said. “Be back in a few minutes.”
Tony Willetts went into the beer garden and took a look at the River Trent. It was slow moving and the water looked filthy. He walked along the bank of the river, and then climbed over a small fence at the side of the pub. He made careful steps forwards, heading to the front of the establishment and near the main road, Wolseley Road. He looked over the road where there were trees and fields, and was hoping that Paul hadn’t gone too far. If they hung about for a few hours, maybe he’d turn up.
Neither Tony, Craig or Paul were fighters, and he wasn’t sure if Paul could have handled his pursuer, hand to hand. He was certainly capable of outrunning it, but Tony feared that Paul would come unstuck if he had to fight the infected person one on one. He looked to his right where the hump bridge was situated, and wondered what was over it. He puffed out an anxious breath and returned to the back of the pub, back to the car park.
Carrying the tyre iron in his right hand, Tony approached the jeep and Paul’s car, and before he could reach the black Vauxhall Corsa, Craig called on him.
“Tony,” Craig spoke from the back of the car, the door now open. “You need to take a look at this.”
Tony approached the back and Craig passed him Demi’s phone.
For five long minutes he gazed at the scree
n that showed him videos, photos of what had been happening overnight, and he almost dropped the tyre iron in shock.
There had been riots in Birmingham City Centre, Derby, Stoke and Wolverhampton. In other smaller places, like Lichfield, Cannock and Burton, there had been isolated incidents of people being attacked in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Tony checked Twitter and Demi’s Facebook page, and could see videos recently uploaded of people being attacked. Some of the footage was shaky and too dark to see, because most attacks seemed to have occurred in the early hours of Sunday morning, between 1pm to 3pm.
He scrolled through the phone and watched a video from SKY News. The scene was being filmed from somebody’s bedroom window, and over and over the filmmaker was saying ‘Oh my God.’ A person could be heard screaming and running down a street. It was a female, and it appeared that another female and a male were running after her. The woman being chased looked to be in clothes as if she was dressed for a nightclub, and fell over. The two pursuers grabbed the woman, as she tried to get up, and pulled her down and began to eat her. Then the video began to blur, and Tony assumed the following scene was deemed too gruesome for public consumption.
It stated underneath that the victim was decapitated in minutes, and that the two attackers continued to devour the corpse for a further minute before disappearing into the night.
“You’re using up my data,” Demi moaned from the back.
“And your battery,” said Tony, and handed the phone back to her. “You’re nineteen percent in the red.”
“For fuck’s sake,” she huffed. “I wanted to try and phone my mum again.”
Tony gulped and stood straight. He was trying to take in some air, but was finding it hard to breathe. He felt giddy, and placed his left hand on his cold clammy head. He thought he was in shock. He then tucked the tyre iron into his trousers, and moaned to himself, “I think I might be needing this.”
Chapter Eleven
More minutes of watching TV was achieved by Melvin, his wife, and Paul Newbold. All were now slurping on hot coffees that Lisa had made, and it took a while to realise that the longer they watched the news, the more repetitive it became.
Paul tried to ring his parents once more, but couldn’t get in touch. He then decided to ring Tony again.
Paul breathed a sigh and a smile stretched over his features. He sat down and looked at Melvin and Lisa who were sitting on the couch. Tony had picked up the phone and the two friends briefly chatted, whilst Melvin and Lisa began a conversation of their own.
“What’s up with your face?” Lisa spoke over the anchorman, glaring at her husband that she despised most of the time. “You look like you’ve just been sucked off by your mum.”
“For God’s sake, woman,” Melvin sighed. “Do you have to be so vulgar?”
“I’m vulgar because I’m frustrated,” she moaned at Melvin. “You don’t put out anymore. And don’t tell me you’ve lost your mojo. I know you sneak to the bathroom and crack one out every now and then.”
“Jesus. I go in there to talk to myself.”
“Talk to yourself?" Lisa scoffed. “You’re a headcase.”
“I’m not a headcase, my little rattlesnake. I’m just lonely.”
“You’re one ball short of a full sack.” Lisa began to laugh and added, “The water’s running and you tell me you’re combing your hair, but I know you’re smacking one out.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Melvin said, then flashed Paul a look.
Paul’s short conversation with Tony over the phone had come to a close, and Melvin could see that his face was filled with disbelief with the conversation that was now taking place between him and his wife.
“I’ve had many a chance to be spit roasted by the binman and the window cleaner,” she huffed. “But I always turned down their advances, out of respect for you.”
“Out of respect?” Melvin yelled. “You do nothing but put me down, especially when we’re in public.”
Paul scratched the inside of his ear with his finger and felt awkward. In a normal situation he would have excused himself and left the couple on their own, but this wasn’t his house and there was nowhere for him to go.
The situation was that Paul’s passenger had been attacked and partially eaten and he himself had to run away from another pursuer. Now he had found sanctuary in a house that had the weirdest couple he had come across. And then he finds out that something in England had infected some people who were now going around killing others. It was a lot to take in.
He sighed, leaned back in his chair, and listened as the argument continued. He had his fingers on his temple and shaking his head.
“Anyway,” Melvin continued to rant at his wife, “the reason why I don’t put out anymore is because it’s like shagging a walrus.”
“Cheeky bastard!” Lisa snapped. “I’m not that fat. I have a dodgy thyroid that runs in the family.”
Nobody runs in your family was the old line that went through Melvin’s head, but he wisely kept his mouth shut.
The argument had died down and Paul waited a few seconds before speaking up. He asked the couple for their wifi password as he had no data left, but was left stunned when they said they didn’t have wifi.
“Really?” Paul shook his head. “Fuck’s sake.”
“Oh, we are sorry about that,” Lisa said with sarcasm and her face looked annoyed. “You can leave whenever you want, you know. We’re not holding you here as a prisoner, are we?”
Paul thought about his friends by the pub. It was over the bridge, just a few hundred yards away. Was it worth the risk?
“Fuck it.” Paul stood up. “I’m going.”
“Going?” Melvin also stood up. “Going where?”
“To the pub. That’s where my friends are.”
“Just let him go.” Lisa ushered her husband to sit down and remained in her chair. “If he’s got a death wish, then so be it.”
“It won’t be that bad,” said Paul.
“Okay,” Melvin sighed, knowing that it was pointless trying to talk Paul out of it. “If you have to go, you can’t go empty handed.” Melvin disappeared into the kitchen and returned, holding a steak knife. “Take this.”
Paul took the knife and flashed Melvin a look.
“Better to have one and not need it, than...” Melvin hunched his shoulders. “Well, you know the rest.”
“Thanks.”
Melvin sighed and said, “Are you sure you don’t wanna hang around for a bit, just in case it’s dangerous out there?”
Paul revealed a smile and shook his head. “Thanks for all ya have done, Melvin.”
Both men shook hands and Paul looked over at Lisa, revealed a small smile, and gave her a nod of the head. She never responded.
Melvin walked over to his main door and waited until Paul was ready.
“Are you sure about this?” Melvin asked him.
“Kind of,” said Paul with a smile. Paul Newbold winked at Melvin and nodded at him to open the door.
Chapter Twelve
“I can hear a noise,” Demi said.
Tony got into the front and all doors to the Vauxhall Corsa were shut.
“Maybe it’s your imagination,” said Craig.
“Better not take the risk.” Tony scratched at his left ear and added, “We saw what one of them did to Emma, man.”
“We don’t even know what they are,” Craig huffed.
“Aren’t they zombies?” Demi spoke delicately and then bit her bottom lip. She couldn’t believe what she had just said. It was ridiculous.
“They can’t be,” Tony said with a soft tone and with a straight face. Neither males laughed at Demi’s comment. The thought had crossed their minds also. Tony looked at his Armani watch to see what the time was.
“No, they can’t be.” Craig shook his head agreeing with his friend. “They’re too quick to be zombies.”
“The one that attacked Emma was breathing heavily,” Tony remarked. “I remem
ber. Whatever these things are, whatever that crowd was that went by us... They’re still human, but are contaminated somehow. I know it sounds ridiculous...”
“It does.” Demi nodded her head.
“But we’ve seen it with our own eyes, man.” Tony remarked. “Whatever it is ... it’s happening, so there’s no point in burying your head in an ostrich.”
“In the sand,” Demi sighed, correcting Tony.
Craig sat back in his seat and released a depressed breath out. He then spoke, “I don’t get it. Is this just an isolated incident?”
“What do you mean?” asked Demi.
“Well, we’ve never seen or heard about this kind of stuff in the news over the last day or so, and now suddenly it happens. There was no build up or nothing. Whatever it is, it’s just started and is gonna blow up to epic proportions. Those people from before must have been infected while at work. Maybe at some kind of chemical plant.”
“What are you talking about?” Demi began to laugh and said further, “Most of those things were well dressed, like us, as if they had been to a club. Or a party or something.”
“I don’t know,” Craig sighed, running his fingers through his short hair. He looked over to the main door of the pub and then looked at his watch. It was half five in the morning and he knew, regardless what was happening, the owners would be annoyed to be bothered at such an hour.
Craig shushed Tony and Demi and told them to get their heads down. Demi and Tony had a quick look and could see a male jogging onto the pub’s car park. It was hard to tell if it was one of the infected or just a normal guy.
They weren’t prepared to take the risk.
They remained crouched down as the sound of clumsy footsteps could be heard scraping along the gravel. The jogging man had slowed his pace and was now walking around the place. All three inside the vehicle held their breaths, as the sound of his feet got closer.