by G G Garcia
Lisa took slow steps over to her friend’s body and placed her hand over her mouth and began to sob. Paul looked up and could see that Mel was also in tears, but he was trying to fight them. Gail’s neck was ripped open, her head almost severed from her body, and this made Lisa turn away and vomit onto the armchair. It came from nowhere, and she had no time to run to the toilet or the sink.
Mel wiped his eyes and cleared his throat. “I saw them from the bedroom window. I came down to warn you guys.”
“It’s okay,” said a panting Paul, holding the bloodied knife. “They literally came crashin’ through the window the moment ya came down.”
“How did they know we were in here?” Lisa wiped her mouth and looked on at Gail’s body with wet eyes. She then looked at Melvin and gazed at him with suspicion.
“I heard noises, so I looked out of the window.” Melvin cleared his throat, before adding, “One of them spotted me, but they went away.”
“Yeah, well,” Lisa groaned and pointed at Gail’s body. “They came back, didn’t they?”
“It’s not Mel’s fault.” Paul decided to intervene. “Wit happened was a tragedy, but what we need to do now is get out of here.”
“And go where?” Lisa snapped.
“Anywhere!”
“You mean the pub?” Mel asked.
Paul nodded. “We can’t stay here, not with that window smashed through.”
“You just wanna be with your pals,” Lisa huffed.
“Yeah, I do,” said Paul. “Do ya have a problem with that? I’m goin’ now. Are ya two comin’ or not?”
“What about Gail?” Lisa sobbed. “We can’t leave her like that.”
Mel ran his fingers through his dark hair that was scattered with grey and ran upstairs, quickly returning with an orange bed sheet. He stepped over the dead bodies and placed the sheet over Gail’s body, covering her face.
He looked around and said, “We need to leave. This place will be stinking in a day or so.”
“She deserves better than that,” Lisa sobbed, and then looked at the carnage. “Covered in a sheet, surrounded by these ... things.”
“Those things are still people,” Paul said and looked over to Mel. “Come on. We have no time to lose.”
“What’s that smell?” Lisa sniffed the air like a dog.
“Holy shitballs.” Melvin retched and could now smell the stench that tortured his nose.
Paul twisted his face and crouched down to the now dead woman who had a large shard of glass in her throat. “It’s her.” He looked down at her crotch. “It smells like she’s shat herself.”
“The guy in our back garden had wet himself,” Melvin said, and could feel his throat hardening once his eyes clocked the orange sheet that was covering Gail. “It appears that when these things need to use the bathroom, they just go.”
“Okay, we’re definitely leaving.” Lisa placed her hand over her nose and mouth. “Otherwise I’m going to be sick again.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Demi began to open the back door and smiled at Tony. “I bet the poor thing’s starving,” she said.
“Just hurry up,” Tony said with nervousness. “Those IOs may not be far away. We’ll get the poor thing in and feed it. There must be something in the kitchens we can give it.”
Once the door was opened fully, Demi stepped out and then crouched down to beckon the canine. It was twenty yards away, looking at her, and cowered a little before trotting his way over.
“It’s coming,” she said to Tony with a smile. “Ah, bless him.”
“How do you know it’s a male?”
She looked over at the Alsatian and looked baffled when it began to snarl. It speeded up and she spotted that its eyes were red, saliva hanging from its mouth. Maybe it has rabies, she thought. She then clocked the eyes once more and it finally sunk in.
“Oh, shit.” She stood to her feet and went to shut the door, but the canine ran through the gap and tried to wriggle its way through.
“What the fuck are you doing, man?” Tony asked her.
“It’s infected!” Demi cried.
“Fuck!”
The dog was half inside, its head waggling to the side and its mouth snapping at thin air as if it was possessed. Demi was still pushing against the door. She did everything to keep the dog at bay, and her strength was stopping it from being fully in, but she was tiring quickly.
Tony gazed at the manic dog and could see its red eyes and the saliva running from its mouth. He felt his pockets, but seemed to have misplaced the knife.
“Do something!” Demi exclaimed, annoyed that the male hadn’t made a move yet.
Tony ran to the other side of the lounge and picked up a heavy-duty fire extinguisher that was attached to the wall. He ran over to Demi, who was clearly struggling, and placed the fire extinguisher onto the floor. He pulled the silver ring out, then the nozzle, and sprayed the contents into the dog’s face.
The crazed dog continued to wriggle, desperate to get in, despite the foam all over its face. Quickly aware that the foam never made any difference to their predicament, Tony picked up the heavy extinguisher and raised it over the canine’s head. He brought it down on top of its skull, but it continued to writhe like a snake on fire. Tony rammed the red extinguisher onto its head once more, but this time never stood back to inspect the state of the dog. He brought the heavy object down again and again, until Demi told him to stop.
Tony dropped the extinguisher onto the floor and was breathless. He looked down at the Alsatian and could see it was dead. Its skull had been bashed in.
His breathing was beginning to return to normal and he looked up at a teary Demi Mason.
“Are you okay?” he asked her.
“No.” She wiped her eyes and shook her head. “Of course I’m not.”
“I didn’t know it was possible that animals could be infected,” said Tony.
“Me neither.”
Tony looked at Demi, and then his eyes were drawn back to the canine and its bashed in skull. Blood seeped out of the wound like red teardrops and his eyes picked up exposed brain tissue. “I’ll get rid of it,” he said. “I’ll dump it by the river.”
*
Paul, Mel and Lisa ran out of the door, all armed, and headed for the Wolseley Bridge. A few hundred yards and they’d be at the pub.
The three of them approached the top of the bridge and was relieved that there were no more signs of the infected. Paul was leading the way, and Mel and Lisa followed. Mel had the claw hammer and Lisa had her knife in hand.
“Right,” said Paul, and looked over to the pub, to their right, in the distance. “Another couple of minutes and we’ll be there.”
“Hold on.” Lisa held her hand up and was still out of breath from the short run from their home. “Give me a minute.”
“We don’t have a minute, Lisa!” Paul yelled. “We need to go now, before more of those fuckers turn up.”
Paul ran on, never looking behind to see if Mel and Lisa were close by. He stopped at the bottom of the bridge as he saw a lone IO running at him from the Stafford Road, from behind a cluster of trees.
He stood his ground and held his knife with a sweaty hand as the beast headed for him. As soon as it neared him, he swiped at it with the knife, but he was grabbed and taken to the ground, dropping his knife. It snarled and gnashed at Paul Newbold, and all the young man could do was keep on top of the thing and not allow the teeth to go anywhere near him. Mel reached Paul and brought his hammer down, striking the head, dazing the contaminated human, and then struck it again, this time killing it.
Paul stood up straight and looked at Mel. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure,” said Mel, but it was clear he was shaking with fear.
“That was ya first one,” Paul said. “And it was to save my arse, so thanks again, Melvin.”
Lisa had caught up with the men and said with heavy breath, “Are you two gonna keep running, or do you want suck each other’s cocks he
re?”
“Ya husband saved my life,” Paul huffed. “Don’t be so crude.”
“You can save the man-hugs till we get to that pub,” she said inbetween breaths.
Paul shook his head and jogged away, with Mel and an out of shape Lisa struggling behind. Paul turned right onto the pub’s car park, and looked over his shoulder to see Melvin and a struggling Lisa not far behind. He stopped once he was near the main door, at the back of the pub.
He looked around and could see no vehicle in the car park.
“My car’s not here,” said Paul to himself, wondering if his pals had left without him.
He stood by the main door and waited for Mel and Lisa to catch up. He could see that Melvin was running by Lisa’s side and had his arm around her waist, helping her. Maybe they didn’t hate each other that much, Paul thought. She shrugged the man off and told him to fuck off, making Paul smile and shake his head. Then again.
He waited until they were both by his side. Once they were, he waited until they got their breath back and could see that the area they were in was clear, apart from a dead dog by the river.
He then knocked the main door three times.
“Are you sure your friends are still here?” Melvin panted.
Paul shrugged his shoulders. “We’re gonna find out soon enough. If they’re not, then I don’t know what we’re gonna do.”
“We’ll have to break in,” said Lisa. “I haven’t left my house to sit in some pub car park. Fuck that!”
Paul knocked again.
“But there might be people in there, sweet cheeks.” Melvin was unsure whether his wife’s idea was a good one.
“I don’t give a cunt’s hair,” she huffed. “I’m not staying out in the open.”
The door opened and Paul smiled when he saw Tony and Demi standing there.”
“Paul?” Tony spoke with wide eyes.
Paul pointed to his left, near the grassy riverbank, and said, “Do you know there’s a dead Alsatian there?”
“It was me that put it there.”
Paul laughed and shook his head. “Are ya gonna let us in or not?”
*
David Morton walked to the cooler and grabbed himself another cup of water. The cooler didn’t have power anymore, but the water was still cold. He downed the water and went to the small canteen. He had always hated the canteen attached to the main office. It was tiny. It was so small that the people in the office had to take four sets of lunches. There was only enough room for four people at a time.
He went through the drawers and checked through the cutlery. At the back of the drawer he had managed to find a steak knife. He placed the knife in his pocket and the thirty-two-year-old walked back into the main office. He went towards the window where he sat during a normal working day and looked out at the Wolseley Arms pub.
It had been a few years since he found out that his wife had been having an affair with the owner John Jameson. They had been going through some financial difficulty and then his wife started to go running. She claimed it was to deal with her stress, but what David didn’t know was that she was meeting John down a country lane, in his jeep, for sex.
She confessed to David that she was having an affair and it had been going on for three weeks. She had to tell who it was, but she promised him that it would never happen again. She had soon put a stop to it and both her and John agreed it was a moment of madness.
The confession hurt David, but he never felt the urge to confront John Jameson. He knew that Jameson would kick the shit out of him anyway, but telling his wife was something he never contemplated. He didn’t think it would be beneficial to break up a family. Why should the wife and their teenage boy suffer because John Jameson had been banging his wife?
David soon snapped out of his daydreaming of yesteryear and could see three people, two males and a female, running along the Wolseley Road. He could see a fourth individual running at the three and guessed that the fourth individual was infected. The younger of the two males attacked the infected individual with a knife, but appeared to be struggling. The eldest man was carrying a claw hammer and struck at the infected being. He appeared to have killed the individual.
The three then were talking amongst one another and began to jog once more, heading for the pub.
David had no idea what was going on.
He patted his pocket to make sure the steak knife was still where he had put it. He then moved from the window and went to the accounts office to check on his daughter.
*
Once the main door was locked by Demi, Tony turned to Paul and both young men hugged each other. Their embrace was quickly broken and Paul asked Tony where was his car.
“Craig had a bit of a wobble. He buggered off in it, leaving us here.”
Paul screwed his face, and it took a while before he realised that Tony wasn’t joking. “Little bastard.”
“He was just desperate to get home,” Tony said, trying to stick up for their friend. “We thought it was safe to stay here, but he thought otherwise.”
“So he took my car?”
Tony shrugged his shoulders, giving Paul no verbal response.
“And what about the owners of this place?”
“They were here.” Tony spoke, followed by a nod. “They left a few hours ago. Found somewhere safer, apparently.” Tony turned his attention to Melvin and Lisa. “The Jamesons. Did you know them?”
“Only spoke to them when we came here for a drink or a bit to eat,” Melvin said. He then introduced himself and his wife to Tony and Demi, and all shook hands.
“And how are ya holdin’ up?” Paul asked Demi.
She had tears in her eyes and slightly hunched her shoulders, too upset to speak.
“That good, huh?”
“I just smashed a dog’s brains in with a fire extinguisher,” Tony began to explain. “So Demi and I are a little shaken.”
Paul took in a deep intake of breath, before asking, “So this thing has affected animals?”
“Either that or the dog had rabies,” said Tony. “A bit of a coincidence, though, don’t you think?”
Tony looked at their clothes. Their attire wasn’t covered in blood, but some sprays of crimson could be seen on their clothes, especially Paul’s.
Noticing this, Paul tried to explain, “We’ve killed a few.”
Tony said, “So I see.”
“Didn’t really have much of a choice in the matter.”
Lisa began to sob and Melvin gave her some comfort.
“She’s just lost someone,” Paul explained to Tony.
Tony nodded, and they all stepped inside and Demi locked the door. Tony told Melvin and Lisa to go upstairs and grab a drink. They did as they were told, leaving Demi, Tony and Paul in the lounge area of the bar.
“Thirsty?” Tony asked his pal.
Paul nodded and said, “Fuckin’ knackered as well.”
“Well, we haven’t slept much, have we?”
“No, we haven’t.” Paul rubbed his eyes and said, “About gettin’ back home...”
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow, man,” said Tony. “You know the power’s out, right?”
Paul nodded. “Done on purpose, I reckon.”
“That’s what the owner of this place said as well, before he left.”
Paul looked around the pub and said, “So this is ours for a bit?”
Tony nodded. “Until they come back. Or we leave.”
Paul smiled. “I’ll have a pint then, while I’m here.”
Tony laughed and went around the bar. “Coming up.”
Demi yawned and said, “I’m gonna go upstairs. I’m exhausted.”
“Okay,” Tony said, and started to crack his knuckles, before pulling the pint. “We’ll be up in a bit.”
Tony also poured himself a drink and for twenty minutes the two pals chewed the fat, only just realising that they had Mel and Lisa upstairs.
“What are they like?” Tony asked him, referring to Melvi
n and Lisa Leslie.
“They saved my skin. Well, Melvin did,” said Paul. “So, I owe them.”
“And you’ve seen some action.” Tony pointed at the blood on Paul’s shirt.
Paul nodded. “I suppose, technically, I’m a serial killer. I’ve done five or six. Maybe more.” Paul wasn’t entirely sure how many IOs he had killed.
“Shit.” Tony looked shocked and knew his friend wasn’t exaggerating about the amount of infected he had to take care of. “You were protecting yourself.”
“Yeah, but they’re still human beings.”
A silence fell on the two young men and they supped their pints in quiet for a minute.
“Good to see you, man,” Tony said with a smile.
“You too.”
Both men perked up when they could hear someone galloping down the stairs. Demi entered the lounge and had the keys in her hand. She unlocked and opened the door and before Tony or Paul could say anything, she went over to the bar and placed the keys on it. She leaned over and kissed Tony on the cheek, and then she gave Paul a quick hug.
“I’m sorry, boys,” she said. “I need to go home. Thanks for everything.”
“Home?” Tony looked astounded. “What do you mean?”
“No time to explain. Sorry, boys.”
She blew the two young men a kiss and then ran out of the door. Tony and Paul got to their feet and went after her, stopping once they were out in the car park. They watched as Demi Mason ran out in the car park and was heading to Stafford Road. A car was on its way down and they continued to stare as the black vehicle slowed down and Demi opened the passenger door and got in.
It drove away and looked to be heading towards Rugeley Road, wheels squealing, leaving the two young men completely baffled.
Both men stared at one another and Paul tried to joke, “Something I said?”
“Who was that?” Tony was referring to the man in the car. “Was that just some random driver she spotted and decided to take the risk?”
