Blog of the Dead (Book 1): Sophie (15 page)

So, we’re going to Wales. I’m pissed off about it, but I’ve been completely vetoed. I just don’t believe we’ll find anything there, and it’s a bloody long way to travel to find out that it’s been a waste of time. My problem is that the Safe Community Facebook page hasn’t had any activity for a few days now. I’m just saying, that’s all.

We’re going tomorrow. So, the Asda crew only have today to learn how to hot-wire, pick out a couple of cars and stock them with some food and water, blankets and anything else useful they can pick up in Asda without getting eaten by zombies.

It rained quite a lot last night, so we’re hydrated. Always good.

I can’t believe I’m never going to see my family again.

December 31
10.20am Day 48
We’re packed and ready to go ... Goodbye Folkestone ... Hello certain death? I haven’t got much in the rucksack that’s hanging on my shoulder –
things
don’t have the value that they used to. Things with greatest value:

– Water

– Food

– Weapons (A gun – would rate highly on my wish list, but I’m pretty sure Amazon, even if they still delivered during the zombie apocalypse, don’t stock guns).

I’ve got some clothes, my toothbrush, photos and my laptop. Anything else I need I can find on the way, I guess.

The others will be here any moment, then we’re off.

New Year, new start.

January

January 1
6.45pm Day 49
I can’t get my head round everything that’s happened since we left Folkestone yesterday. It’s been fucking awful. Leanne. Fuck. I can’t believe ... Sod it, I can’t do this right now. I need to eat and sleep. I need something to drink … and I’m not talking about water.

January 2
4pm Day 50
We sat in the living room on New Years Eve morning, Pleanne on the sofa and me and Sam each perched on a sofa arm. We all had a rucksack slung over our shoulders and a weapon in hand. I ran my nail along the wooden handle of my claw hammer absent mindedly.

Silent. Stomach churning, heart banging, hands sweating.

I had an adrenaline fuelled sharpshooter-stylee focus in my head. Of course, I’d been out among the zombies many times, but that day I knew I wouldn’t be coming back. The prospect of heading out into fuck knows what terrified me. Who likes change?

The sound of the horn made me jump. I looked at Sam. Each of us, me, Sam and Pleanne, rose slowly, giving ourselves a moment to take a breath and gather our courage. Then we sped to the door of the flat, Polly pulling Leanne behind her, a harassed mother pulling a child late for school.

We stood behind the communal door waiting for the second blast of the horn, the signal to open up. I could already hear the Aphex Twin’s ‘Selected Ambient Works’ coming from outside. Liam had found the album in Asda in the hope of keeping the zombies as calm as possible while we made our escape (learned that trick from Richard. Remember Richard?).

I heard the roar of an engine outside and tyres screeching, back and fourth, back and forth, drowning the chill out music. The screeching stopped and the horn sounded.

I opened up to see a black Range Rover Sport positioned at an angle, its front close to the building, blocking the zombies that hadn’t been flattened by its arrival, and its open back door in line with the door to the flats. Engine running. I stayed focussed on that open door, our escape route, and so only slightly aware of the dark grey Hyundai Santa Fe sat behind the Range Rover at an angle to block zombies from getting through to us on that side.

‘Go! Go! Go!’ I yelled to Pleanne, pushing them out into the triangle of street that lay between us and the Range Rover.

They both dived into the back seat. I felt Sam’s hand in the small of my back pushing me forwards. In the second it took me to reach the door of the Range Rover my brain managed to process Kay at the wheel, her gaze flicking between us and the zombies that surrounded the vehicle on the other side, Keith behind the wheel of the Hyundai and Liam now standing at the back of the Range Rover, his axe smashing skulls of zombies unaffected by the calming effects of the chill out music that blared (is that an appropriate word in relation to chill out music?) from the Hyundai’s stereo as the zombies squeezed their emaciated bodies between the two vehicles or crawled across the Hyundai’s bonnet.

Then in the second it took me to duck my head down into the back of the Range Rover I saw him through the side window … David. I stopped. Stuck. Staring.

Shit, David, dead and dried up. The warm, soft lips that I once kissed now shrunken and braced in a grimace, baring teeth coated in yellow and red saliva.

‘Hurry it up,’ said Liam from my right. ‘I would really like to get back in the car.’

Sam’s hands on my back – shoving me forwards. ‘Don’t look, Sophie!’ I heard him say and then, through no effort of mine, I was in the back seat of the Range Rover, next to Pleanne and on my knees, the front of my body pushed up against the back of the seat. I heard the door slam and felt Sam’s body touch mine. I couldn’t take my eyes off David. But all his eyes could see as they stared towards me was meat.

‘Shhhh,’ said Sam as the Range Rover waited for the Hyundai to move off first.

That’s when I realised I was screaming.

4.25pm Day 50
Getting out of Rendezvous street proved to be a struggle, even with most of the zombies stupefied more than usual with the chill out music. We had to back up and get out via Guildhall Street, what with the Old High Street and Grace Hill being blocked off with the metal fences. The mass of zombies surrounding the vehicles was hard to drive through.

Keith led in the Hyundai, but we couldn’t find a road out of Folkestone that hadn’t been blocked by abandoned cars. I thought we’d have to stay after all, like a weird movie where no matter how hard you try and drive away from the strange town or creepy old mansion the road always takes you back. Arrrggghhh!

Then, while stopped at a gridlocked section of Sandgate Road, I had a brainwave – the sea wall. The wall would be wide enough to drive on and would take us clear out of Folkestone. We got back into the cars and drove down to the harbour, through where the Rotunda fairground used to be and onto the sea wall itself. Then Keith turned off the sea wall and up a slope towards the kids’ play park, through the gate by the Toll House and followed the road into Sandgate.

The roads were much clearer here and we were off …

8.15pm Day 50
Our problems started somewhere down the narrow country roads around Romney Marsh. We wanted to get onto the M20 motorway but had to keep taking detours due to gridlocked roads or zombie-blocks. On a narrow stretch of road near Newchurch, flagged on one side by hedges that gave way to the occasional cottage, and a ditch on the other, it looked like Keith lost control of the Hyundai. It zigzagged, then screeched to a stop in front of us. Kay slammed on the brakes of the Range Rover and swerved into a hedge to avoid bashing the Hyundai up the butt.

‘Everyone ok?’ asked Sam. He sat in the passenger seat now, while I remained in the back, next to Pleanne.

‘Yep,’ I said.

‘What the fuck’s happened?’ asked Kay, opening up the driver’s door.

We all got out and darted over to where Keith and Liam inspected the Hyundai’s front wheels. That’s when I noticed the glass, shit loads of what looked like wine bottles smashed all over the road. The front tyres on the Hyundai had been punctured.

‘Ah,’ said Keith. ‘That’s blown it.’

‘Not our only problem,’ said Liam, staring over my shoulder, his axe held by his side.

I followed his gaze. Zombies staggered our way from a little row of cottages set back from the narrow road to my left, but further back the way we’d come.

‘Bugger,’ said Sam.

‘You two are going to have to get in the Range Rover with us,’ I said to Keith and Liam. ‘Let’s grab what we can and get out of here!’

Everyone but Kay, who dashed off to the Range Rover, snatched some supplies from the Hyundai, then sprinted back to the Range Rover. Kay already had the vehicle started and the rest of us piled inside, bags of food on our laps, and pulled the doors closed. We couldn’t go forwards because the Hyundai blocked the way, and behind us the zombies from the cottages had spilled out onto the road. Kay reversed into them.

‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’ yelled Kay as the Range Rover thudded into the rotten bodies at speed. ‘I can’t see where I’m going!’

I held onto the seat in front of me as the Range Rover’s wheels bumped over fallen zombie bodies. Then – Thud! – as the Range Rover reversed right into the back of a Honda parked in a lay by in front of the cottages. ‘Fuck,’ said Kay.

She drove the Range Rover forwards but the vehicle’s bumpers had got caught and the Range Rover wasn’t going anywhere. Zombies lumbered towards us.

‘Shit,’ said Polly. ‘For fuck’s sake get this thing moving!’

‘What do you think I’m trying to do, you Fucktard?’ Kay floored it, the bumpers separated and the Range Rover shot across the road and nosed dived into the ditch and rolled onto its side. No one was hurt, despite the fact that none of us in the back had seatbelts on, but we did end up in a tangle on top of each other. Food spilled everywhere from the bags we’d been holding.

‘We need to move,’ said Keith. ‘Company!’

I pulled myself free of the various body parts entwined with mine and looked out of the back window to see zombies lumbering towards the Range Rover. Sam opened the back door. Hitching my rucksack on my shoulder and taking hold of my claw hammer, I followed him up and out of the vehicle. Sam helped me jump down from the overturned Range Rover into the ditch, the others all piling out behind me.

The zombies had reached us and swayed at the top of the ditch in a manner that suggested they had no idea how to negotiate the drop. Leanne was last out of the Range Rover. She performed a valiant if somewhat flimsy leap just as the first of the zombies did a
let’s give this a try
flop into the ditch, knocking Leanne off her feet. Polly shot over and drove her spear through the zombie’s head. She helped Leanne to her feet and we all staggered up the other side of the ditch, just as more zombies belly flopped into the ditch behind us. One thrust a ravaged arm up and caught Leanne by her ankle. She slid away from us, back into the ditch, her skin and bone fingers trying to claw onto the mud and grass to stop her descent. As she fell, another zombie grasped her arm and dragged her down. I heard her scream as a zombie bit her.

‘Leanne!’ Polly turned to follow her down but I grabbed her elbow, forcing her to stop. ‘Get the fuck off me,’ yelled Polly, and she raised her fist at me.

I readied myself for the blow, but Sam grabbed Polly’s wrist and held onto it, pulling her clenched fist down to her side. Leanne cried out for help. Help that I couldn’t justify giving. Polly struggled in our grip as me, Sam and now Liam dragged her away from the ditch. She screamed Leanne’s name with gusto.

Those zombies that were not otherwise occupied eating Leanne now tried to clamber up our side of the ditch. It would take them a while, but I knew they would get up eventually. Polly was having a freak-fest, and pulling her along wasn’t easy, but we made it across a field and, as we neared a wooded area, we saw a woman running towards us. She waved something red, to get our attention, I think, and I could hear her calling to us. ‘This way,’ she said. ‘Come on. It’s safe this way!’

As we caught up with her, she turned and darted into the woods. We followed her, Polly no longer resisting but not exactly putting in much effort either.

Soon the trees thinned out and I could see a large building up ahead. ‘This is us,’ said the woman without stopping.

She ran until she reached a large wooden gate, opened it and then stood beside it as we all darted through. She closed the gate after us. ‘This way,’ she said and headed off up a driveway to the large old building that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Gothic movie, something with vampires in it. Please no vampires. Really, we have no space for any more supposedly fictional monsters.

The woman opened the large wooden front door of the building and trotted inside. We all followed her into a large entrance hall. I could see a desk just inside the door. ‘Hi,’ said the woman, she looked to be about 30ish, long straight hair, a friendly smile. ‘I’m Cathy. This is my hotel. You’ll be safe here. And you’re all welcome to stay as long as you like.’

‘Is-is this place secure?’ I asked.

‘Ish.’

‘Ish?’

‘Yeah. Ish,’ said Cathy. ‘The hotel itself is secure. Nothing can get into this old fortress. Just the grounds. There’s fencing that goes around the perimeter but there are gaps so the odd zombie tends to get in. I want to get the place secure eventually. Come in.’

We followed Cathy into a bar where a guy and a girl, both late teens, sat reading books. I didn’t have a chance to see either title before they were lowered and the boy and girl looked at us. ‘And this is Shelby and Wade,’ said Cathy. ‘They’ve been here for a couple of days now.’

So, that’s how we failed our mission to Wales, lost Leanne and found a new place to stay. This is our second full day here. I don’t know how long we’ll stay. But we’re staying for now.

January 4
11.20am Day 52
We’ve kinda reached a bit of a hiatus, and not really done much these last few days apart from lick our wounds. Polly’s pretty much catatonic after what happened to Leanne. I know it’s bad to admit, but I’m really not feeling much. It’s not like I ever really developed a relationship with her and I only really remember her as a shadow across doorways. I had more feelings towards people I knew for five minutes like Guitar Don, for example. Even the couple who got eaten outside Johnny Cotter’s gallery in town. At least they fought for their lives.

It hasn’t escaped my sick mind that there can’t have been much flesh on the girl, either. So fucking wrong, Sophie. So fucking wrong.