Apocalypse Cow (20 page)

‘Be careful,’ James told Fanny, and kissed her.

Fanny smiled. ‘Don’t worry. Karma will protect me.’

Oh, you’re so dead
, Geldof thought flippantly.

He lowered his hand as he realized that was precisely what could happen. Another strange feeling bubbled up in his chest. Unlike the triumph this was an old one, something he remembered from when he was a small boy. It was love for his mother.

‘Mum!’ he shouted.

Fanny looked up and waved. ‘Bye, Geldof! I’ll bring you back a nut bar.’

Geldof bombed downstairs, intending to rugby-tackle Fanny, which was the only way he could stop the headstrong woman going. Fanny might be a pain in the arse, but she was the only mother he had and he didn’t relish the idea of her becoming rat food. By the time he’d fumbled open the catch on the front door, only James remained in the garden. The car coughed into life on the other side of the fence and then pulled away.

‘She’ll be cool,’ James said, putting his hand on Geldof’s shoulder.

He did not sound at all convinced.

The back roads were indeed passable, although they had to slalom around the bullet-riddled bodies of at least a dozen cows dotted along one hundred-metre stretch. Terry kept glancing at David in the rear-view mirror as he drove.

Their reunion had been awkward, to say the least, once David’s initial happiness that Terry wasn’t dead had passed. They had been out of touch for so long that they felt almost like strangers. Terry had kept trying, but he wasn’t helped by the way David’s attention kept squirting around like an eel in a mud bath. During the stay, Terry had felt something building in his cousin. It was nothing he could put his finger on exactly, more like the subsonic hum of a generator slowly climbing towards overload. Now, however, David was calmly gazing out of the window, a small smile creasing the corner of his mouth. Either he had undergone a personality bypass, or he was up to something.

A few cars were scattered around the car park when they pulled up outside the supermarket. The sliding doors yawned open a few feet away and the daylight penetrated only a short distance inside, illuminating a news stand with glossy magazines scattered around its base and a metal rack stuffed with bunches of withered roses, chrysanthemums and lilies. The rest of the store was bathed in gloom. Terry wondered if the doors had been forced open by looters – which, it struck him, was exactly what they were – or if the fleeing manager had left the store unlocked to allow people to help themselves. Either way, anything could have wandered in.

‘Let’s just wait a bit, see if anything moves,’ Terry said.

He turned the engine off and rolled the window down a touch. The only sounds were the ticking of the car engine and the whistle of the wind. Terry had always been fond of silence, but the lack of any human noise – the chatter of children, the honk of horns, the distant whine of a lawnmower – was unnerving. There were people out there, hunkered down in their homes, yet without any visual or aural evidence, it was easy to imagine the trio in the car were the last people alive.

After five minutes of waiting and nervous glances at the entrance, Terry opened the door. ‘I’ll go have a quick look inside first.’

He edged into the store, clutching his pitchfork. Once inside, the gloom seemed less imposing and he could see up to the back aisle.

‘Hello,’ he shouted. ‘Any zombie cows in there?’

Nothing stirred in the depths of the aisles, other than the echo of his voice coming back to him.

‘It seems clear,’ he told Fanny and David. ‘Fanny, you come with me. David, you wait here. Honk if you see anything.’

‘Roger,’ David said cheerfully.

‘Fanny, maybe you should take that hoe, just in case.’

She shook her head. ‘If I see anything, I’ll run.’

‘Fine. Let’s just get in and out. I’ll go for dried goods, you get tins, as many as you can grab. OK?’

‘But I need to get some ingredients for—’

‘We don’t have time for you to run about looking for flipping cumin seeds.’

‘I’ll be fast.’

Terry, seeing the set cast of Fanny’s lips, gave in. ‘Fine. Just hurry.’

Fanny climbed out of the car. Despite her insistence on going in unarmed, she seemed keen to stay near the armed Terry, twice standing on his heels before they reached the trolley bay, where the shopping carts were chained together.

‘Crap. Have you got a pound?’ he asked. Fanny just looked at him. ‘I guess not. Well, stand back.’

Terry shoved the pitchfork under the flimsy chain holding the first trolley to its neighbour and hauled. It snapped free. He repeated the process and liberated another trolley, pushing it to Fanny. ‘Remember what I said. Grab a bunch of tins and get to the car as quickly as you can. No fannying about looking for herbs and spices.’

‘Was that supposed to be a joke?’ Fanny asked.

Terry realized his faux pas and burst out laughing. Surprisingly, she joined in. They walked along the checkouts, still tittering. Terry grabbed a handful of plastic bags and handed some to Fanny. ‘Pack as you go. It’ll be quicker.’

‘Oh. I forgot to bring my reusable bags.’ She took the plastic bags between thumb and forefinger, holding them as though they were used condoms. ‘Needs must, I suppose.’

Fanny was obviously relishing being out of the house, for she built up speed and then lifted her feet, letting the coasting trolley carry her along. She stopped at the tinned veg aisle and turned to Terry. ‘See you in five minutes.’

Terry continued, glancing up the aisles. The shelves were depleted, but there was enough left for their purposes. The virus must have descended on the area too quickly for the hordes to loot the supermarket fully. At first he gravitated to the three-for-two offers, as he had always done to stretch out his meagre salary, before realizing he wasn’t going to be paying for anything. He quickly began behaving like a contestant on
Supermarket Sweep
, gleefully filling his trolley with dried goods, olive oil and other items with a carefree swipe of the forearm. There was plenty of toilet paper, thank God, and he also picked up ten cans of Right Guard as well as a few of the posher aftershaves he normally couldn’t afford. Once he was satisfied with his haul, he walked back to the entrance with the intention of dumping his stuff before returning for Fanny. When he reached the front door, the car was sitting unattended in the empty car park.

‘Fucking buffoon,’ he said. ‘Where the hell is he?’

That was when he heard the shouting. He ran back into the store and saw the two adversaries near the end of the tinned meat and fish aisle. David was backing away from Fanny, who was wedged between two half-full trolleys and waving a tin in his face.

‘So much for just wanting to help out,’ she said. ‘You only wanted to fill your fat belly.’

She saw Terry and held up a tin. It was too far away for him to see what she was brandishing.

‘Pork sausages,’ she bellowed down the aisle.

‘Be reasonable, love,’ David whined. ‘I really, really need some meat.’

‘I’m not your love. I am a strong, independent woman and you will not trample over me. You’re not cooking your filthy meat in my house.’

Terry advanced to play peacemaker, cursing himself for allowing David to come on the trip. Halfway up the aisle, he stopped and cocked his head to listen. Fanny was still shouting, but above her shrill voice there was another noise. It grew louder and resolved into snuffling and grunting.

‘Guys,’ Terry called. ‘We need to leave
now
.’

Fanny continued to hector David as, at the rear of the aisle, a cluster of bulky pigs appeared. They came at full tilt, trotters scrabbling for purchase as they turned. David, who was looking up the aisle, pointed, his mouth open. Fanny was in full flow and did not register the change in expression. David gave up and came pelting down the aisle towards Terry, pushing one of the trolleys before him.

Terry yelled, ‘Run!’

Fanny looked after David and then turned round to face the charging pigs. Pus leaked from open sores on their faces and dripped off the end of their quivering snouts, mixing with the drool that slicked their mouths. She let out a shriek and looked at the can of sausages, horrified. Terry thought she was going to lob it at the animals. Instead she dropped it and held her hands out in a gesture of pacification.

‘They’re not mine,’ she said hurriedly.

But the pigs were not interested in the contents of the tin. Fanny flew back under the force of their charge, skidding at least five feet on her back. The animals crowded round and began tearing at her, their massive pink bodies quivering.
Somehow
Fanny managed to regain her feet and tried to hurdle their backs. But one of the pigs had a firm grip on her leg.

She lifted her head to look at Terry, her face screwed up in disbelief, as her fists drummed uselessly against the pink wall.

‘This isn’t fair,’ she said. ‘I’m a vegan.’

The pigs closed over her and the screaming began. David zoomed past Terry, who was still rooted to the spot.

‘Come on,’ David called urgently. ‘She’s had it.’

Terry forced himself to move forward. He stopped when one of the pigs lifted its head, let out a squeal, and trotted towards him, leaving a trail of bloody trotterprints in its wake. While Terry wanted to run, he had no desire to give the accelerating pig his back, and he could not leave Fanny to die without making an effort to save her. As the pig advanced, its intelligent gaze fixed on the sharp prongs of the pitchfork, he tucked the weapon under his arm and clambered onto the shelves. The weak metal buckled under his weight, but it held enough for him to reach the top, where he stopped to gain his balance. The pig halted directly below him and raised its front trotters to the first shelf. At first Terry thought it was going to attempt to climb after him, but it remained perched there, snout snuffling the air.

He ignored it and tottered along the shelving, moving as fast as he could and praying the creaks that greeted every footfall did not herald the complete collapse of the structure. The pig shadowed him, its beady little eyes never looking away. When Terry was close enough, he began hurling tins at the pigs savaging Fanny with as much force as he could muster. They bounced ineffectually off the fatty backs, so he began to scream at the top of his lungs as well.

‘Up here, you evil swine! Do you know how many of you I’ve killed? I’m the one you want!’

As one, the animals lifted their heads and fixed him with a row of hungry, murderous gazes. Fanny had fallen silent, and now that the pigs were not worrying at her flesh, she lay completely still, allowing him a quick glance at the raw wounds that flowered across her body. He was too late. The pig that had followed Terry once again laid its trotters on the first shelf, only this time it seemed to be trying to haul its bulk up. Rage seized Terry and he raised the pitchfork high over his head, before spearing it downward like a gladiator. The prongs dug deep into the pig’s neck, but it forged upwards, rear legs sliding on the floor. Gravity and a lack of opposable thumbs were stacked against the pig’s efforts to climb, but the other animals followed its lead, launching themselves at the shelving in an attempt to reach the fresh meat above. The top of the unit yawed forward as the bottom began to cave in, sending Terry sliding towards the edge. He overcompensated for the forward motion and suddenly his feet were no longer able to anchor him. His back slammed off the shelf behind him, and he somersaulted into the air. The motion sent his body flipping round completely, so when he landed on the hard floor in a shower of boxes of pasta, the back of his thighs took the force of the impact.

He sat there for an instant, watching the shelves shudder with the weight of the pigs on the other side, but self-preservation got him up and sprinting down the aisle towards the exit. When he reached the central passageway that cut at right angles to the aisles running from front to back, he heard the pack blundering towards him. The pig that had first singled him out was in the lead as they rounded the corner
and
the pitchfork, still embedded within its flesh, caught on a display of tinned ham. The swine was knocked over and sideswiped the animal trying to overtake. That, and the cascade of cans, created enough of a blockage to delay the drove.

Terry thought briefly about doubling back now the group had followed him, but Fanny’s stillness and the wounds he had witnessed from his high perch told him he would be putting himself in peril to retrieve nothing more than a corpse. Instead, he tore out into the car park, without looking back, to where David was throwing bags into the back seat.

‘Forget that,’ Terry said. ‘Let’s just go.’

Terry flung himself into the driver’s seat. David leapt in, sprawling across the few bags he had managed to load. The engine burst into life and Terry pulled away in a screeching U-turn, sending most of the bags tumbling out of the still-open door, just as the pigs emerged. They stopped on the threshold in a line, almost as though guarding their territory from further intrusion, and stared balefully at Terry as the car slipped past. Their snouts were painted with Fanny’s blood, making them look like evil red-nosed clowns.

Terry went straight over the mini roundabout and accelerated up the hill leading to the main road. His hands shook violently on the wheel, sending jitters through the whole car. In the back, David had his face buried in the plastic bags. ‘I don’t believe it,’ David said.