went to cross the road but had to wait for a tram to pass. ‘Look at the driver, there’s something wrong with his face. What a shame!’
‘Lily, for goodness’ sake, stop finding fault with people. Just keep your mouth shut.’
Lily didn’t mention that she had seen twenty or so passengers with damaged faces and missing limbs sitting awkwardly in the back of the tram.
The donut stall was called ‘Deliteful Donuts,’ and the young man behind the counter was wearing a badge saying ‘Deliteful Nick.’
‘Four donuts, please,’ said Ed.
‘Are they vegetarian?’ asked Lily.
Ed tutted.
‘There’s no meat in them,’ said Nick, ‘and this is vegetable oil.’
‘But sometimes they put animal by-products in these things,’ replied Lily, ‘I really need you to check.’
‘You’re such a pain, Lily,’ said Ed.
‘Tell you what, love, I’ll put you four in to fry and I’ll nip in the back to check the ingredients list. Won’t be a tick.’
He dropped four donuts in the hot oil and disappeared through a door. The pair waited patiently, wind and rain beating at their backs, but he didn’t come back. The donuts looked like they might burn any minute.
‘Give us a bunk up,’ said Lily, ‘I’ll get them out.’
Ed rolled his eyes skywards but he put his hands together so she could step on them. She balanced one elbow on the counter and reached for the donut dipper. She lifted the donuts out of the oil, drained them and dropped them on the waiting paper.
‘Hurry up,’ said Ed, ‘My hands are killing me.’
Lily grabbed a paper bag and the sugar sifter then scrambled down. The donuts, slightly more brown than golden, looked and smelled delicious. Lily sifted sugar over them and sighed.
‘What’s up with you?’ asked Ed.
‘I don’t know if they’re veggie so I can’t have one.’
‘It’s a bloody donut for God’s sake. It won’t kill you to eat it.’
‘I don’t put animal products in my body. It’s against my beliefs.’
Ed put three donuts in a bag and pushed it in his pocket. He picked the last one up and began eating it. ‘Yum,’ he said, ‘this is bloody gorgeous.’
Lily left the money on the counter and the two turned to go. Lily thought she heard a noise in the back of the donut stall so she turned to watch for a minute but there was no Nick.
Behind their backs, as they waited at the pavement edge to cross the road, a figure wearing Nick’s name badge staggered through the door. He didn’t look ‘deliteful’ though; one eye swung on a string from its socket and his left arm was missing. While the pair were crossing the road, this strange Nick was dipping his remaining hand into the donut batter and cramming handfuls of the stuff into his mouth.
The rain had cleared a little. They walked along the prom: Ed taking tiny bites and murmuring sounds of pleasure; Lily breathing in the donut aroma and salivating. To distract herself, she gazed up at Blackpool Tower, a building she remembered from when she was a kid. It looked different today, with its dark red metal framework glowing against the angry grey sky. She felt herself drawn to it.
At the top of the Tower, eating a sandwich and gazing down at the tiny figures and cars below, stood Millard Boden, or should I say Millard Borden, PhD, for he had been awarded his doctorate only a week before. His dissertation had been entitled, ‘The Theory of Programming the Undead,’ and his supervisor said it was the most original work he’d ever seen.
It was Millard’s fortieth birthday. About to face the biggest test of his life, he was looking back on the twenty years of study which had brought him to this very moment. Sitting in many classrooms and labs, he’d listened to numerous tutors and lecturers explaining a multitude of subjects. He’d met many people but only made one friend over the years; he hadn’t seen her for some time and had no idea how to find her. There wouldn’t be a party for Millard’s fortieth, no one to invite, but this event would be bigger than any party ever known and he didn’t even have to cater.
Earlier, he’d entered the base of the Tower from the seafront. He’d sidled into a corner where he couldn’t be seen and slipped a gas mask on his face. He’d taken a large green capsule from his pocket and lobbed it over to where the admission desk was. When it hit the floor, a dense green gas rose into the air. Millard hurried to lock and close the outside doors so no one else could get in and the sea breeze wouldn’t cause the gas to disperse too quickly. It didn’t need any help; this gas had the ability to permeate every crack and fissure, every pane of glass, every floorboard, before disappearing as if it had never been there. There was no escape from its toxic nature. He listened to the sound of bodies hitting the floor and jumped slightly as a large crash sounded upstairs. Stage One was complete.
He picked up the display table he’d spotted on his exploration the previous week and carried it, with the rest of his stuff, over to the lift. He travelled up to the first observation deck and lobbed another green capsule just to be sure that no one survived up there. Next he jammed the lift doors open with a specially-made wedge.
He chose his work space and dragged a couple of bodies out of the way. He set out his three laptops and one iPad on the table from downstairs and plugged them all in. He connected to the Tower’s Wi-Fi and logged in to various satellites, security cameras and webcams. As the screens came to life, he shouted, ‘Lift off, we have lift off,’ and punched the air in victory.
He noted on his extensive spreadsheet that Trev, one of his twenty Trustie Undead, (he didn’t like the term ‘Zombie’) had driven a loaded tram over from Fleetwood. His Trusties had a small chip inserted into their necks, a chip which stabilised the cerebellum, enabling purposeful and smoother walking, and stimulated part of the frontal lobe of the brain enabling previously stored life skills to be utilised. For example, Trev could capably drive a tram and hold a short conversation about tickets and money. Trev also carried a Taser, as did all the Trusties; the Undead didn’t actually feel the shock but their muscles automatically reacted to it.
The group of Undeads transported by Trev was about two hundred yards behind Ed and Lily. She turned around and spotted them in the distance, staggering along.
‘Drunk,’ she said, ‘paralytic at this time of the day! It’s disgusting. A stag party, that’s what they’ll be. I wouldn’t want to marry anyone who walked around in public that drunk.’
‘I wonder if I should eat another donut,’ said Ed, ‘It were right tasty that first one.’
‘Come to think of it,’ thought Lily, ‘If I had the chance to live my life over, I wouldn’t marry anyone, full stop.’ She didn’t say it out loud even though Ed wouldn’t have heard it – he was too busy saying, ‘I’ll keep them for later, non-vegetarians can eat donuts anytime.’
The pair walked on to the North Pier so that Lily could listen to the music they played. She called it ‘Golden Oldie Time.’ They sat on a bench near the train stop – it didn’t look to be working that day, probably because of the rain. Ed took off his hat, shook it so that raindrops flew off and settled it back on his head. Lily was singing to herself.
‘Lot of people down the end,’ said Ed.
‘Oooo, oooo, oooo,’ sang Lily, ‘I love yooo-oo-ooo.’
‘Wonder what they’re up to? Looks to be something going on. Might talk a walk down there.’
He began to stand but there was such a mighty bump and a smashing of glass that he sat down again. The Pier Train was crashing through the glass doors at the end of the pier.
The deafening noise broke into Lily’s romantic dream of a faceless figure sweeping her into his arms and waltzing her around the polished dance floor of the Tower Ballroom. She watched as the train raced past them. The driver had the top of his head missing. The train went straight for a few yards and then swerved left, crashing into the benches attached to the railings. Made by the Victorians to withstand years of abuse, the railings only fractured at one point so that a
segment swung open partway, like a gate. One of the train’s wheels hung over the edge, spinning. The engine was still revving.
The crowd at the bottom of the pier stopped what they were doing, turned and began advancing towards the train. Ed and Lily, dithering about whether or not they needed to go to the train and what they could do about it, focused their attention on the crowd. It soon became clear that this was no ordinary crowd, this was a crowd of hideously damaged people, many of them with necks clearly broken, eyes and ears missing, great chunks of flesh bitten from their bodies. Some were crawling along with limbs missing. Behind them lay two mutilated bodies.
‘Zombies,’ breathed Lily, ‘Give us one of them donuts.’ Lily dealt with all stressful situations by an input of sweetness, usually a cup of hot sweet tea but a donut, even one that was doubtful in its suitability for vegetarians, would do at a pinch. Ed pulled the bag out of his pocket, gave one donut to Lily and had one for himself. The delicate donut aroma rose into the air and drifted down the pier. First one, then many of the Zombies sniffed the air and subtly changed their direction, heading towards Ed and Lily.
It’s not generally known that the Undead have a penchant for donuts, although it has been studied in depth (see, for example, MV Borden’s 2010 MSc thesis, ‘The Desire for and the Input of Donuts in the Diet of the Undead.’) Given a choice between living flesh and a
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